


400 lux

by Sleepyb0y



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Android Gore (Detroit: Become Human), Awkward Dates, Awkward Flirting, Blood and Gore, Brief mentions of sleep paralysis, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Gavin watches android porn for research purposes, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Night Swimmming, Nightmares, Or are they dates????, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Smoking, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wire Play, like descriptions of an autopsy if that bothers you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 78,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepyb0y/pseuds/Sleepyb0y
Summary: [the approximate illuminance of a sunrise or sunset on a clear day]Nines is stood outside waiting for him. Not sat in the car or leaning against it like a normal human. No, he’s stood, hands clasped behind him, dripping in the cherry-red glow of the neon liquor sign like a weirdo.He blinks unnecessarily and turns when Gavin pushes the door open with a clatter.“Detective,” he says, lips still parted long after the sound leaves his mouth.There’s something about the muggy night air and the feverish light from the store sign that has the breath caught in Gavin’s lungs like a knife-wound to the ribs.AKAGavin and RK900 are sent to New Mexico to assist in a series of local police investigations.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 218
Kudos: 316





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, it me. So, it took a global pandemic to get me to sit down and do some actual writing again. This one has been in my Google docs for a while now but it's finally at the point where I can take the time to finish it. Hope you're all staying safe (and indoors where possible). Have some pining boys.

_Gavin’s drunk._

_Again. The third time this week, in fact._

_Room swirling, a high pitched whine ringing in his ears as his brain tries to decide which way’s up. Bile in his throat. There’s a sharp bloom of pain as he stubs his toe, dulled by drink but could be broken._

_Fuck- he winces even in the haze of alcohol- definitely could be broken._

_He flings himself into bed, the cool sheets swallowing him up gratefully, face buried in the plumpness of his pillows. His heart hammers against his ribcage, muffled against the soft waves of his duvet, but he feels it like the aftershocks of an earthquake. There are paintbox colours behind his closed eyelids. An impending migraine swimming in the darkness. Last week’s crime scene whirls through his brain. Not the worst. But blood splatters on the floor. Dark red on his shoes. The smell was terrible. He turns his face to the side, licking his dry lips and cursing himself for not getting a glass of water first._

_His room is dark and the mattress shifts like a whirlpool beneath him, pulling him under. Nausea or sleep- whichever will take him first. He blows out a puff of air and squeezes his eyes shut to ground himself._

_Why is it when he’s drunk he thinks about the worst things in his life? Thinks about every time he’s messed up. Thinks about every urge he’s ever had to say fuck it all and throw himself off a bridge._

_Tina would be sad though, he thinks. He feels that ache just behind his sternum like a flower blooming and intertwining between every rib, pulling them tightly together._

_Or is he just going to be sick? The sensation drops to his stomach and he fights the urge to vomit._

_A kaleidoscope of images swim behind his eyes then. Twisting and turning and warping. Colours bleeding into one another. Last week’s crime scene is back in pieces._

_Red, red, red. Grey?_

_Grey eyes._

_Long legs. Perfect hair. Scowl._

_His fingers grasp at the sheets. For balance, for purchase on something real. Nothing else. It’s not- he’s not..._

_Not real. No._

  
  


_Never._

  
  


_Couldn’t be._

* * *

Gavin awakes to the grating sound of his snoozed alarm going off for the fifth time. 

Hungover and reeling from a night of disturbed sleep, he peels himself from the sheets, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. He misses his footing, slipping on a discarded sock, and falls out of bed in a heap. He’s instantly reminded of his maybe-broken toe as it throbs with pain.

Shit. 

He’s already at least two hours late. 

He throws his suitcase onto the bed, chucks the clothes he hadn’t unpacked from his last trip onto the floor, and fishes a couple of clean pairs of boxers from his open bedside drawers. He grabs a handful of clothes, a random selection- a few generic work shirts, some t-shirts, his only clean pair of pants and a jumper- and slam dunks them into the suitcase gracelessly. He takes a second to debate showering but the buzzing of his phone on the drawers makes up his mind for him.

**Robocop calling…**

“Fuckin’-” he grimaces and rejects the call. With one swift dash around his apartment he throws the last of his travelling essentials into the suitcase and zips it up. As he grabs his phone, the screen lights up again with a _‘six missed calls from Robocop’_ notification along with the time. Shit.

He’s so late. 

Today’s the day he and Terminator are due to fly to New Mexico to assist the local police investigation regarding a series of murders. The department requested input from the DPD’s legendary android detectives, Connor and Anderson were too busy, so guess who gets to play tin can babysitter for a fortnight? For fuck’s sake. 

And of course Gavin’s way of dealing with this- coupled with his chronic inferiority complex and his perpetual insomnia- was to get really fucking drunk. 

There’s a knock at the door. Well, a banging really that seems to slam into his head harder than any hangover migraine. A rhythmic, harsh, sound that sounds like a jackhammer or a machine...

“Detective Reed,” a voice calls out. Loud. Monotonous. Gavin groans and steps into yesterday’s jeans, pulling the denim up over his hips. He struggles to do up the buckle of his belt, sweaty fingers slipping on the metal. He exhales heavily through gritted teeth.

“Two fuckin’ minutes, tin can,” he yells, triumphantly looping his belt and ducking to look under his bed for a clean t-shirt. 

No such luck. There are many things under his bed but the word 'clean' can not be used to describe any of them. 

“We have forty-five minutes to get to the airport, Detective,” the voice calls again. “I am not averse to breaking this door down and carrying you there.”

“Fine!” Gavin growls and grabs the nearest t-shirt: a deep green v-neck he hopes is clean. 

He jumps up and immediately regrets it- a wave of nausea smacks him in the forehead and the room spins like a hurricane as he tries not to throw up. Fuck this. He wrestles the shirt over his head, grabs his leather jacket from the back of his desk chair and his suitcase, and goes to leave. 

He wrenches the door open and daylight hits like a three thousand tonne freight-train. He screws his eyes shut against the onslaught of light threatening to tear his skull in two and brings his hands up in a meagre attempt to shield himself from the bitter, white sunlight. He lets out a desperate, shuddering exhale as though the sky has punched him in the gut, and for one terrifying moment he thinks he might be about to pass out into the android’s arms. 

RK900 is stood on his door-step, arms folded, hair perfectly coiffed in that teddy-boy way that always leaves one curl infuriatingly out-of-place. His face is calm, the picture of nonchalance. But Gavin knows his tells. The android’s LED is flickering slightly and there’s a tiny bit more tension in the plastic prick than is usually present. 

“You were supposed to be at the station at ten thirty,” the android states, as if reading from a teleprompter. “It is now-”

“I’m ready now, aren’t I?” Gavin grumbles, pushing his way past the android. He could have sworn he heard him sigh as he throws his luggage in the back of his car and fishes a crumpled cigarette out of the carton in the back of his jeans for the journey.

He fumbles in his jacket for a lighter and realises with a sinking feeling that he’s left it inside. He sighs heavily and resists the urge to punch a hole through his car as he slots the cigarette back. 

RK900 purses his lips prettily,

“Detective, you are in no fit state to drive and we are already cutting it extremely tight.”

Gavin screws his eyes up to look in the direction of the android, who just happens to be standing in such a way that the sunlight sets his silhouette ablaze, standing like a 6”2 plastic angel. 

“Says who, prick?” He growls, bringing his hand up to shield his eyes from the light. 

RK900 takes a step forward, blocking out the sun, and Gavin can see him clearer. There’s the tiniest trace of tension in that perfect face, a little pinch of the brows, and his lips drawn into a straight line. The android reaches forward and plucks at the front of Gavin’s shirt and he realises with a twist of mortification that it’s inside-out, the label sticking up obnoxiously. He’s instantly reminded of how his mom used to sew his name into all the clothes he wore to school, so that when he inevitably lost them, they could be returned to him. 

These days, his label should say: _Gavin Reed, human disaster._

“Says me,” RK900 states, cocking his head, eyes boring into Gavin’s. “Would you prefer me to breathalyse you instead? Then we can see who’s correct.” 

Gavin’s seen him analyse one too many crime scenes to argue with that. How would he even _do_ that? Stick his fingers down his throat? Gavin’s gaze drops to where the android’s hands are still grasping the fabric of his shirt and imagines those long fingers probing his mouth. He would puke for sure. Would that even work? Or is it his tongue that does the analysing? He has to stop there because Jesus, his mind did _not_ need to go there today…

He reluctantly shrugs out of the android’s grip and tosses his keys at RK900, a little too hard and definitely aiming for the face, but he catches them easily in one hand. 

Of course he does.

* * *

Gavin stares out of the window across the flat of the airplane wing and counts the little signs hammered into the grass alongside them as they pass. The plane begins to turn, lining up with the runway, and Gavin feels his stomach turn with it. He’s bouncing his leg agitatedly, his hand thumbing the fraying denim of the knee of his jeans, as the pilot announces they’re to prepare for take-off. He exhales loudly and turns away from the window. RK900 is sat pin-straight, eyes closed, doing that weird android sleep thing he does whenever he’s running system diagnostics or filing a fucking report or checking his emails or whatever. Gavin had elbowed him out of the way so that he could have the window seat so he can’t see from this angle but he’s certain his little LED is swirling and flickering as his artificial brain processes whatever mega-information he’s sifting through. Stupid fucking an-

“Fuck!” Gavin hisses as his knee hits painfully off the tray table. A cloud of purple pain blooms in his kneecap and eclipses the one behind his eyes. The air hostess nearest to them tuts and signals for him to flip the table up, her painted lips pulled into a frown. He does as he’s told and pushes it back, wincing as he tries to settle in his seat. God, he could sure use a Xanax right now. 

“Detective,” RK900 says, opening his cool, wintry eyes. “Your heart rate is significantly elevated. And you haven’t stopped moving since we sat down.”

Here we go. 

“Yeah?” Gavin grouses, dragging his hand down his clammy face. “What’s it to you, plastic?”

The plane is picking up speed now, the engines starting to roar, filling Gavin’s ears with the dizzying sound of pure velocity and power. _It’s going to be fine_ , he thinks, _it’s going to be-_

“Statistically speaking there are only a few fatal airplane crashes a year,” RK900 states mechanically, folding his hands in his lap. 

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Gavin growls. 

“And a general fear of flying is experienced by approximately forty percent of the population.”

“Hey, I’m not scared of flying-” he starts to say but at that moment, the plane’s wheels leave the runway and Gavin’s stomach drops. His hands grip the denim of his jeans so tightly his knuckles pop white against the skin. 

The swooping sensation in his stomach nearly makes him retch and he squeezes his eyes tightly shut, jaw set, concentrating hard on not throwing up. The plane roars as it surges into the sky and Gavin curses the DPD’s dirt-cheap travel budget as the whole thing seems to rattle noisily as they hit the cloud barrier. The turbulence here is bad, the seat beneath him vibrating so hard it makes his teeth hurt. The plane drops a few feet in the air in a way which makes his stomach plummet, his hands scrabbling blindly for purchase on anything to feel safe. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, counting down from 100. His whole body locks with tension and his breath catches in his chest as he waits for the plane to stabilise. 

_Ninety-two, ninety-one…_

His ears are ringing with the air pressure and the general noise of the take-off. He knows if he weren’t so tense he’d be shaking. He tries to breathe.

_Eighty-eight, eighty-seven, eighty-six, eighty-five..._

He doesn’t open his eyes until he’s at thirty-three and they level out above the clouds. He feels the sunlight rush through him along with a wave of nausea. He stares straight ahead at the warning signs displayed on the back of the tray in front of him and tries to slowly let the tension uncoil from his muscles. 

He realises then what he’s holding onto and snatches his hand back.

RK900 doesn’t say anything thankfully, he just removes his own hand from the armrest and makes a show of flexing it, as though Gavin’s grip could ever cause a military-grade android discomfort.

Gavin twists in his seat, shuts the window blind down, and presses his blazing cheek against the cool plastic of the plane wall. 

* * *

The trip becomes boring very quickly. Another day, another greasy diner in another small town. Three cups of black coffee and a breakfast that threatens to repeat on him when he swipes the crime scene photos out of the fat case file. RK900 pulls one of them across the table and swivels it so he can get a better look, fingers splayed, turning it like he's opening a safe, no doubt running some flashy diagnostic program that can tell him all the answers in an artificial heartbeat. 

Gavin rips open a sachet of sugar, sending little crystals skittering across the table, and pours it into his cup. His gaze drifts slowly across to the opposite side of the booth as he stirs the coffee idly, the teaspoon clinking gently against the cheap china. 

RK900 sits tall, a dark ink-blot shape against the tacky red vinyl, his face pale and pinched into the tiniest micro-expression that Gavin’s learned to pick up on over the months. His LED doesn't change hue but it flickers just once as his eyes drift over the photograph. He's dressed in his usual slacks and turtle-neck, despite the heat beating down through the wide glass windows. It bathes the only exposed parts of his skin in the bitter yellow sunlight so that his pristine porcelain skin takes on an almost pearlescent sheen. _A design flaw_ , Gavin thinks. Too perfect to be human. 

And whose idea was it to give a ruthless killing machine freckles?!

He takes a sip of scalding coffee and grimaces, feeling the tender flesh of his soft palate twinge. He sifts another photograph out of the file instead. Makes a point of turning it away from the waitress when she comes over to top up his cup. Thankfully, she's not one for small talk. 

He runs his hands through his hair, his forehead already damp with sweat from the mid-morning sun, the collar of his dress shirt wilting slightly against the nape of his neck. It’s too fucking hot here, that’s for sure and he feels uncomfortably formal despite the addition of his usual worn leather jacket. Although he guesses it's almost impossible to look overdressed when sat opposite action-man over there. 

He finds himself drumming his fingers on the table as he watches RK900 peruse the rest of the case file like he’s reading the morning paper. A nervous habit, he’ll admit. Because RK900 does make him nervous- even now after a few months of this strained partnership. He’s unpredictable and stoic even in deviancy. Hard. Cold. Nothing like Connor.

RK900 slides one of the photos across the table, turning it with two long fingers so it’s facing the right way up for Gavin. 

“Do you notice the pattern of the blood here?” the android asks, voice low and even. 

Gavin stares at him for a moment. The perfect features, unmarred by blemishes. No scars. No discolouration. Just those infuriating freckles, perfectly placed in constellations across the planes of his face. RK900 quirks an eyebrow at him when he doesn’t answer- something he’s never done before. 

In fact, it might be the most expression he’s ever seen on the android’s face _ever_. It’s weird. It makes him feel weird. Like someone’s tied his guts in a knot and pulled it tight. His gaze drops to the photo, the corpse pictured framed by two long, pale fingers. 

“Gunshot wound,” Gavin states, clearing his throat.

“Correct.” RK900 swipes a few other photos forwards- a picture of a semi-automatic, a close up of the blood pattern. “Something isn’t right though.” Gavin narrows his eyes at the two photos, analysing the spray, his brow furrowed. He can’t tell if he’s right or not. 

“Are you sure?” Gavin asks, picking the photo up and holding it closer to his face. “Looks pretty standard to me.”

RK900, obviously not impressed by Gavin’s response, continues: 

“I am the most advanced model Cyberlife has ever-”  
  


“Alright, fuck. I don’t need a run-down of your system specs.” Gavin sighs, sliding the photos back into the folder. “I guess we will see when we get there.”

* * *

The perspective grid in RK900’s environmental scanner sprawls out across the room like a checkerboard sea, washing over the scene and highlighting key areas for investigation. It’s seamless; this is what he was programmed for. And he feels relief when the blue filter overlays his vision and his processors can really stretch their legs. There’s been too much talking today- interviewing the officers on the investigation, small talk with the chief. He left most of that to Reed, who's arguably not much better at it. But _this_ is where he belongs. Where he’s comfortable. 

The body’s been removed for autopsy of course and the local police seem to have moved things about a bit in their investigation; a fact Reed is clearly displeased with, arguing with the local CSI in the corner of the room, gesticulating wildly. RK900 tunes him out. It won’t hinder him in any way. He has every aspect of the crime scene documented in the case file logged away and a full scan of the room will allow him to reconstruct a variety of possible scenarios. 

He paces the room- eyeing the chalk outline where the victim once lay, the dried blood splatters on the wall, the cut zip-ties that bound the victim’s hands. He catalogs it all away, sifting through the mundane and irrelevant until he gets to the stuff he wants. 

He kneels at the base of the wall where the majority of the victim’s blood is splattered. He swipes two fingers across the surface so that he can collect a little dried blood sample before putting it to his tongue to test. 

“Hey, the forensics team already sent that to the lab for analysis,” the CSI says suddenly, stepping forwards. 

RK900 turns to object, to explain exactly why his method is faster, more precise and entirely superior but Reed gets there before him. The human folds his arms, the leather of his jacket creaking, and scowls at the CSI. 

“Hey- your chief asked for the android’s input, right? Let him do his job.”

The CSI’s face crumples into a look of disgust.

“ _Him_?”

“Whatever,” Reed waves his hand flippantly. He fishes in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes and goes to stand out in the yard. 

RK900 takes his sample, bringing the blood to his tongue carefully, and the results are as expected. He logs them away for future reference but right now he has to speak to Reed. He straightens up, taking care to document a closer shot of the blood splatters for his own records should he need them to argue his point. 

Outside, the sun is high in the sky, and Reed is skulking beneath the shade of a particularly large tree. The leaves filter the sunlight into dappled shadows that dance across the human’s face as he struggles to light a cigarette. RK900 crosses the yard in a few long strides.

“I would like to see the body,” he states. 

Not a request. 

“Could you sound any creepier?” Reed huffs, blowing smoke in the android’s direction as he idly leans against the trunk of the tree. 

RK900 resists the urge to strangle him, an impulse that often comes with an accompanying system warning whenever the human acts like a petulant child. There’s a smirk playing around his lips but he can’t tell if the comment is meant to hurt or not.

“Today, if you don’t mind,” RK900 says coolly. 

Reed rolls the cigarette around to the corner of his mouth and his gaze obnoxiously drags up the android’s form but he doesn’t argue. He just nods and takes another drag. 

* * *

The morgue is ice-cold; a shock to the system in comparison to the cloudless skies of the torrid July afternoon. Gavin shivers, his arms breaking out in gooseflesh where he's had his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He's not entirely sure if it's from the cold or the way RK900 is staring at the body on the slab in front of him. 

The android peels back the flesh where the pathologist had previously made the Y-shaped incision and sinks his arm into the chest cavity. Even after all these years it still makes Gavin cringe a little. He's thankful that the frontal rib cage has already been partially removed- he never did like the sound of the saw. 

The android’s other arm selects one of the surgical tools laid out next to him- a sharp, spiky one. Gavin watches half-entranced, half-disgusted as RK900 delves into the mass of organs with surgical precision. Eventually, he pulls back, gloves dark with congealed blood, holding the victim's heart triumphantly in his fist. He raises it to eye-level, little light blinking like mad, as he turns it this way and that. 

Gavin just hopes he doesn’t lick it. 

Seemingly satisfied, the android places the organ in a metal dish with a sticky thud.

"The initial autopsy report was wrong," RK900 states with clinical authority. He peels his gloves off and the latex snaps in a way that makes Gavin flinch. _Why is he even wearing those?_ He grimaces, the menthol camphor on his upper lip dampening the tip of his nose as he does. RK900 turns away from him to wash the dried blood off his forearms but infuriatingly doesn’t elaborate. 

"Care to share with the class, tin-can?" Gavin grouses, gesturing to the silent audience of occupied cold lockers surrounding them. 

"The cause of death was cardiac arrest caused by an adrenaline injection to the heart,” RK900 states, unfolding his sleeves. He turns to look at Gavin as he rebuttons his cuffs at his wrists, steely eyes vacant. “The gunshot was for show."

"Huh,” Gavin exhales. “Seems like overkill.”

RK900 doesn’t get the joke. 

  
“Indeed,” the android says instead, “but he was purposely trying to make it seem like the victim was shot.”

“Android laws here aren’t as up to date as Detroit- they still can’t carry arms in New Mexico.” Gavin remarks. “Could be trying to throw us off.”

“That’s definitely a possibility.”

“So, where does this leave us? Had to have access to medical supplies... potentially a health-care worker?"

"Judging by the lack of fingerprints at the crime scene...and what we know about the android population in the area in general... I'd say so,” RK900 says in a very nonchalant tone. Like he’s commenting on the weather and not the dissected corpse of a murder victim. 

He’s right, of course. Gavin remembers reading up on android laws in New Mexico when they were assigned this job; although the android population in Detroit is way higher than most states, it’s incredibly sparse in New Mexico. Prior to the revolution, most worked in factories, supermarkets or domestic roles- hospitals and nursing homes being one of them. 

“Well then,” Gavin says. “Let’s get going then.”

* * *

  
  


They park up on the side of the road on the way back to the station- if you can even call it a road, it’s more like a dirt track in the middle of nowhere- next to the world’s grimiest burger van. RK900 sits in the front passenger seat and stares straight ahead at the human perched on the bonnet. Reed is having his second cigarette of the journey, a menthol palate cleanser after his greasy burger, the wrapper of which remains crumpled on the floor of the car. 

RK900 wrinkles his nose at that, or as much as he can with his set gallery of carefully calibrated facial expressions. 

In this heat, the human doesn’t like staying in one place too long, and judging by the damp patches on his blue dress-shirt and his rising body temperature, RK900 reckons they’ll be on their way again soon. He’s glad. When they’re working, Reed acknowledges him, speaks to him almost as if he were human and the conversation flows easily, as if they’re just two colleagues trying to figure out a case together. 

It almost makes up for the awkward silences that fall when they’re sat in the car or in their motel room. When Reed doesn’t need him. 

RK900 knows he wasn’t programmed with social interaction in mind. He was built to intimidate and even in deviancy he hasn’t grasped the knack of casual conversation. He struggles with most social aspects of his job but somehow, Reed’s abrasive personality makes things easier. Like two sharp edges that somehow cancel each other out. But only when they’re working. When they’re not, his processors whir with a thousand different conversation starters, questions to ask, anecdotes, even insults. But all of them die on his tongue when the human shifts in his seat and turns away, fingers drumming agitatedly on the steering wheel. 

Reed finishes his cigarette and flicks the stub away with his thumb and forefinger. He turns, hair tousled and dusty, and gets back into the car. The leather of the seats creak as he adjusts his weight and grimaces as he tries to get comfortable in the hot, sticky car. RK900, in an attempt to be helpful, presses the button to open the driver-side window. Reed watches the glass retract and shoots the android a look that’s halfway between a question and a scowl. RK900 says nothing, just turns back to the windscreen. After a moment, Reed revs the engine and pulls out onto the road with a cloud of dust and they head back to the crime-scene.

RK900 watches the desiccated cracks of the desert plains and the prickly fronds of sagebrush pass by as Reed accelerates down the road. The human raps his fingers against the steering wheel, more fractious than usual under the hot, sulky afternoon sun. Even with the windows down as far as they'll go, the car's internal temperature soars, the air blowing in hot and dusty. Reed wipes his forehead with the back of his hand every so often and leaves damp handprints on the steering wheel. The atmosphere in the car feels charged, despite the silence, and the roll of the human's jaw belies his growing irritability. RK900 predicts a 72% chance of conflict should he attempt to instigate a conversation yet the quiet of the road and the heat of the afternoon feels somewhat unstable. 

He leans forward and Reed tenses at the sudden movement, his grip tightening on the steering wheel until he realises RK900 is only turning the radio on. It's full of crunchy static even on a digital frequency but there's music to be found with a bit of adjustment. RK900 sits back in his seat and folds his hands in his lap neatly. 

He resists the urge to scan the human when Reed casts him a strange look out of the corner of his eye when he thinks he’s not looking. 

* * *

  
  


The motel room looks like his grandma’s living room; dated floral prints, wood paneling and porcelain ashtrays. The decor looks like it hasn’t been updated for about seventy years, and judging by the dust on the skirting boards, it hasn’t been cleaned in that long either. A little moment frozen in time in the middle of fucking nowhere. 

And time moves differently within it too. Slowly the sticky afternoons drag into early evening while Gavin flips through the channels on the dated TV set, dropping ash on the floral bedspread, while RK900 sits on the opposite bed, upright and silent. 

They don’t talk. 

Gavin shuts down all attempts at conversation before it can even begin. But it’s moments like this, when another telemarketing show zips past on his channel skipping, that he’s tempted. Even if just to fill the silence that hangs so heavily between them. 

“Do you have to do that?” RK900 asks, his voice breaking through the fuzzy static of the TV. It’s laced with the tiniest hint of annoyance. 

Gavin glances over at the android. RK900 blinks unnecessarily but holds his gaze, chin tilted up a little.

“You pick something then,” Gavin huffs and launches the remote across the room at the android. It hits his knee with a thunk, plastic on plastic, and he panics for a split second before realising that androids can’t feel pain. Thank god, or terminator-3000 might have launched him through the screen door by his throat. 

RK900 stares at the little device resting against his leg, his face pulled into the tiniest micro-expression that could be disgust or it could be confusion, he’s not sure. 

“I don’t watch television,” the android says slowly, eyes flickering upwards and Gavin could have sworn that a hint of hurt flashed across his usually stoic features. 

“Fine,” Gavin says, getting up and shutting the TV off. The screen display dies, the faces of the presenters swallowed up in black. “We can just sit here in silence then.”

He regrets it as soon as he’s done it. The sudden absence of noise from the TV is deafening. There’s nothing but the tinny rattle of the air conditioning unit on the wall and Gavin’s own breathing. He skulks back to the bed, determined not to make eye contact with RK900 and flops down, fishing his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. 

A moment passes.

“Why do you hate me, Detective Reed?” RK900 says, his voice cutting through the quiet of the room. 

Gavin’s thumb pauses over the screen of his phone, hovering a millimeter from the illuminated surface. He exhales heavily.

“I don’t hate you,” he says after a second. “I’m just not particularly excited about your existence. But don’t take it personally. I don’t like a lot of people.”

It’s true. He doesn’t dislike RK900 anymore than he dislikes anyone else he has to work with. Yeah, he’s still sore about the whole ‘perfect android detective’ thing but Connor is objectively more annoying.  
  


“You don’t speak to me,” RK900 says.

Gavin feels an uncomfortable sort of itch spread through his chest. He casts a quick glance to his right where RK900 is sat. The android is looking into his lap, hands clasped neatly together on his thighs, in an almost sincere display of nervousness. It’s oddly human. 

“I don’t speak to anyone,” Gavin says slowly. Defensively. He’s not sure why. 

“You speak to Officer Chen,” RK900 says quickly, eyes darting up almost accusingly. 

“She’s my friend.”

“And Lieutenant Anderson.”

Gavin laughs.

“I tell him to fuck off.”

RK900 holds his gaze for a moment, then his eyes drift back to his lap where his hands have unlaced themselves from each other and are now thumbing the fabric of his Cyberlife-issue slacks. 

“You speak to RK800,” he says, a little quieter than before.  
  


“I do not,” Gavin replies quickly.  
  


“You do, I’ve seen you,” RK900 says and there’s that accusatory hint to his tone again. “You’ve spoken to him approximately thirty-two times directly since I joined the DPD.”

Gavin scrunches his face up in annoyance.

“Why are you logging that?”

He stands and stalks over to the mini-fridge in the corner and grabs a beer. The cool glass is soothing against his sweaty palms and he can’t help but feel he’s being interrogated. He’s not sure why but he’s starting to feel guilty for not acknowledging the android at every possible turn. In truth, this trip would be a whole lot easier if they were civil but there’s something that unsettles him about RK900. Something he can’t quite put his finger on. 

“I can’t help it.” RK900 says "My system automatically records and cat-”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Jeez,” Gavin throws his free hand up in defeat. He unscrews the top off the bottle and takes a swig, relishing the cold relief that rushes through him almost immediately. When he sets the bottle down on the desk he sees that RK900 is still staring at him, waiting for him to say something. Gavin sighs and runs his hands through his hair. He’s not very good at this.“You’re deviant, right?” RK900 nods. “So...what do you…-” God, it shouldn’t be this hard to think of a conversation starter, android or not- “I don’t know- what do you like to do? Y’know when- when you’re not at work?”

RK900’s brow pinches slightly, a tiny fracture to the veneer of indifference. 

“When I’m not at work?”

“Yeah, dip-shit. _After_ work?” Gavin asks, taking another sip from his beer and leaning against the wood of the desk, watching RK900’s reaction carefully. The android doesn’t react. As though Gavin’s just spoken a language all his own. “When you go home?” He tries again, narrowing his eyes at RK900 who just stares back at him. Then a thought hits him like a brick to the face. “Wait, you do have a home, don’t you? You androids are all legal citizens now?”

It’s like the penny finally drops and RK900 adjusts his position awkwardly. Again, terrifyingly human. Gavin kinda hates it. He fiddles with the damp paper label on the bottle as the android meets his gaze once more. 

“I live at the station.”

Gavin isn’t sure what he was expecting but he scrunches his face in confusion at the answer.

“What?”

“I have a charging port and I-”  
  


“Wait, wait, wait… hold on a second… you _live_ at the precinct?”

“Yes?”

“Really?”

There’s a pause.

“Yes.”

Gavin stares disbelievingly. The idea that RK900- perfect, _terrifying_ RK900- lives at the DPD, when he could have anything- do anything that he wanted to...well it kinda floors him. He downs the last of his beer and exhales heavily, placing the beer bottle carefully on the desk. He lets out a little nervous laugh.  
  


“Fuck, okay,” he replies, shrugging. “I dunno, I just assumed you lived with Connor.”

RK900 noticeably glowers at that comment. His forehead creases becoming more pronounced as his mouth actually turns down slightly at the edges. 

“RK800 and I don’t get along,” he states, voice low and even.

“Really?” Gavin asks. Come to think of it he’s never actually seen them interact outside of cases and even then it’s been work-related and via that weird android-hand superpower thing-y that creeps him out. Somehow, the answer still surprises him. “But you’re basically the same person.”

It’s apparently the wrong thing to say because RK900 visibly tenses.

“He is a prototype. I am a much more advanced model.”

Gavin tries his best not to laugh at what can only be described as the most obvious look of disgust begins to spread across the android’s face. He’s getting better at those facial expressions. 

“Jeez, sorry. Didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”

“You didn’t,” RK900 says curtly, smoothing the fabric of his trousers. “I am confident in the superiority of my own abilities.” 

“Sure,” Gavin says smirking. Who knew androids could be insecure? The silence that follows is telling though and he feels almost guilty when he looks over at RK900 who is still staring at his hands in his lap. “Uhh...do you want to put the TV back on?”  
  


“Why?” RK900 says, looking up, his eyes narrowingly slightly. 

“I’ve got a film you might want to watch,” Gavin says, digging in his pockets for a cigarette and sticking it between his teeth.

He grabs the remote from where it’s still sat against RK900’s leg and switches the TV back on. He fumbles with the buttons, trying not to pay attention to the android in his peripheral vision who’s still pointedly staring at him. When the opening title sequence of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy begins, he casts the remote to the end of the bed where it lands amongst the faded hydrangeas and tulips on the worn covers. He nervously glances to his right but finds the android sat forwards, LED swirling a golden yellow, something that Gavin instantly recognises as-

“Hey, don’t fuckin’ google the ending!”

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin is gay and afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again- self-isolation and working from home got me staying up late listening to weird desert ambience tracks on youtube and making aesthetic pinterest boards while writing this. Thank you so much for your lovely comments on the last chapter- I'm so glad you like it so far because I've already written way, way too much of this fic. There's so much more pining to come.

The cool tiles of the hotel shower offer him little relief. Still, he presses his forehead into them as if he can somehow crush the thoughts from his head like he’s grinding out the light from a cigarette stub. Another night’s sleep, another set of fractured, feverish dreams. 

The usual things. A few ancient cold cases that crop up from the darker recesses of his brain, clawing their way to the surface to scream for help in his sleep. Sometimes he wakes up, or he thinks he does, and they’re there in the room with him, closing in from all sides. Sometimes it’s people he knows. More recently, the two have been indistinguishable. He shuts his eyes and even now, in the clinical light of the white bathroom bulbs, he sees grey eyes chased to the edge by black. Tiny things; the peach glow of skin and interspersed freckles and one forehead wrinkle when he scowls. The tips of pale fingers dancing across his skin. Hovering over his throat. 

His hands press into the hard planes of the porcelain, nails caught in the grout until his fingertips scream and he’s surprised there’s no blood. The water eventually runs cold, dripping off the tips of his hair and his nose, until he can barely breathe and he has to man-up, turn it off and get the fuck out. 

He plants his feet as steadily as he can on the cheap tiles of the motel bathroom, taking care not to slip as the water pools about his feet while he grabs a towel. He knots it at his waist then sluices the condensation on the mirror til it collects at the corners and he can see himself clearly. 

Gavin had never particularly thought himself to be unattractive. In fact, he’s never really given much thought to it at all. He’s always been too abrasive, too antagonistic, for it to matter. People are driven away by his personality long before they even really have a chance to figure out whether he won the genetic lottery or not. He prefers it that way. 

He pokes and pushes the flesh of his cheeks, smoothes the first signs of wrinkles from the corners of his eyes, runs the calloused pad of his fingertip over the furrow in his brow. His reflection squints back at him, stormy eyes, too stubborn to wear his glasses because they make him look like his brother. He scrunches his nose at the thought so the scar tissue there rearranges itself into a grizzly zig-zag.

The purple-ish shadows under his eyes look deeper, like bruises. He’s not been sleeping well at all. Worse than usual, in fact. They’re not normal nightmares- and boy does he have enough nightmare fuel- they’re more like a patchwork of everything shitty that’s ever happened to him and a whole load of weird shit he doesn’t want to read into right now. 

_ That perpetually sulky top lip. The alpine shape of knuckles in a perfect fist.  _

He shakes his head at his face in the mirror. He wants to punch the glass, carve it full of spiderwebs, so he doesn’t have to look at his face anymore. But he doubts the DPD budget will stretch to hotel damages.

He sighs and leans in a little closer so his breath fogs the glass slightly on a shaky exhale.

Well, he has all his teeth and his features are generally all in the right place. Nothing stand-out ugly. He does need a shave, that he’ll admit. He turns the tap on and lets the water run for a moment, hands gripping the porcelain of the motel bathroom sink as he tries to unpick the origin of these thoughts and why he’s just spent ten minutes staring at his own face. The sinking feeling in his gut tells him he already knows.

He supposes it’s hard not to become a little self-aware when you’re standing next to someone that was literally engineered in a lab to be the physical embodiment of strength, power and resilience. Designed with the intention to replace humans. To replace him. It doesn’t help that, despite their best attempts to make the RK900 model intimidating, all Gavin sees is long legs and hard, lean muscle, hair like a 1950s Hollywood heart-throb and piercing, grey eyes that he might have once called soulless. 

Now, he might say they were cool, calculating, focused even. But not empty. In fact, a lot of things have changed in how he once looked at RK900. 

He tries not to dwell on that too much. 

He turns the faucet to cold and brushes his teeth a little too hard as though he can wash the bitter taste of RK900 right out of his mouth. When he spits there’s blood amongst the froth; another reminder of his fragile humanity. 

He emerges from the bathroom and finds RK900 staring into the full-length mirror at the foot of his bed. There’s a fraction of a second where the android doesn’t react. A freeze-frame where Gavin just stares at the curious tilt of his head, lips parted a little, fingers splayed over the high collar of his shirt. He doesn’t jump when he catches Gavin’s eye in the reflection like a human might do when caught unaware. He freezes, fingertips still mid-primp, a full swirl of yellow on his LED. Then he sheepishly steps away from the mirror, staring as the yellow turns to cyan in the polished reflection of his shoes. 

“Don’t mind me, feel free to carry on preening,” Gavin grumbles, pushing past the android, gripping the edge of the towel around his waist a little tighter. 

RK900 turns with him, eyes following him to the edge of his bed, in a way which makes the back of Gavin’s neck burn. 

“I wasn’t preening,” the android says flatly, eyes narrowed. 

“Whatever,” Gavin pulls a clean pair of boxers out of his bedside drawer. He pauses for a moment. “I guess I would too if I looked like you.”

He doesn’t dwell on the hypocrisy of his own statement and the fact he just spent way longer than average in the bathroom analysing his own reflection. It’s different when you’re reading down a list of flaws. Who could blame the physical embodiment of perfection for wanting to look in a mirror? 

“Like me?” RK900 asks, one immaculate eyebrow raised just a fraction in question. 

Gavin stills, instantly regrets ever opening his mouth. 

“Yeah, like…” He turns and gestures to the impossible length of RK900’s legs, “... _ that.” _

_ Yeah, really eloquent, Reed. _

The android continues to stare at him, mouth slightly parted in confusion, until his tongue darts out to wet his lower lip,

“I just look like Connor.”

Gavin pulls a face.

“That’s...not what I said.”   
  


“It’s true though,” RK900 fires back instantly, not allowing Gavin time to breathe let alone unwrap exactly why the android is suddenly having an identity crisis. 

Okay, so Gavin had once been guilty of calling RK900 ‘the evil twin’ to his face but that was months ago. RK900 is...nothing like Connor. He doesn’t need the other RK model here for comparison; it’s obvious to him now the blatant differences between them. If he were going off personality alone, RK900 is far more introverted, a little awkward in fact. But even physically, there are some really obvious differences. The eyes of course. And RK900 is sharper; much more defined edges like he’s been drawn with a fine-liner instead of a felt-tip. But there are subtle things as well. The weird, tiny things Gavin’s subconscious has fixated on and allowed to bleed into his dreams. The dangerous curve of RK900’s cheekbones, peaks and valleys, and that sharp, angular jaw. The weird sadness that lingers in the corners of his mouth. Amplified by the way he always stands like he’s holding his breath, back straight all the stress held in his face. Always so taught, so immovable, so paradoxically fragile, like he’ll snap at any second from all that tension. 

Gavin stares at RK900, all of this resting at the tip of his tongue. He tries to formulate some kind of reassuring statement but, no matter how he lines it up in his head, it all sounds so very pathetic.

“You don’t look the same,” is what he settles on saying instead. 

“Don’t we?” RK900 cocks his head and Gavin feels something twist in his stomach. Although it’s true that Connor’s doe-eyed stare might weasel a confession out of most people, RK900’s icy gaze dares to rip it straight from your throat. 

  
“No. You’re...different.”

“Different?”

There’s a pause. 

“Taller.”

He’s not sure that’s even true as he’s never checked the specs but something about the way RK900 stands, like one of those fancy greek statues made of marble, makes him look at least two inches taller. Gavin turns away from the cool stare and walks to the edge of his bed, checking the time on his phone. Enough time for a cigarette before breakfast to escape this interrogation? Hopefully. 

“Right,” he hears RK900 say quietly. It makes him feel uncomfortable, like a full-body itch he needs to scratch. 

Gavin sighs.

“Are you  _ actually  _ fishing for compliments, Nines?” he asks, turning to look at the android over his shoulder. RK900 blinks at him like a deer in headlights and Gavin relinquishes any hold he has on dignity. He’s having this conversation in nothing but a towel after all. “You look  _ good _ , okay? Connor’s…” Nope, getting into dangerous territory here. “Look, you’ve got that handsome asshole thing going for you, alright.”

RK900 tilts his head to the side, brow furrowing into that singular crease. His LED flickers for a fraction of a second as he processes what Gavin has just said. He seems to half-nod like he’s accepted Gavin’s back-handed compliment but then his brow furrows and he looks up again. 

“Nines?”

Shit.

“Yeah...Nines.” Gavin says flatly. RK900 doesn’t respond, he just continues to stare at him, waiting for Gavin to elaborate. “....nine hundred? ...RK900?”

“My designation,” the android states. He’s doing that look again. That piercing gaze that unpicks all of Gavin’s insecurities in one flash of icy grey. He feels his face warm a little under it.

“Yeah, it’s a mouthful.” Gavin shrugs, turning away again. He doesn’t know why that’s the name his brain came up with. It somehow feels logical but also incredibly incriminating now it’s out in the open. He shakes his head and opens each drawer of his bedside table, in turn, looking for a clean shirt. He goes to undo his towel before he realises RK900 is still staring at him. He glances over his shoulder and the android’s LED flickers a little at his temple. “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to let me get dressed?”

For the first time in their entire partnership, RK900 looks almost flustered. He brings one of his hands up and opens his mouth like he’s going to say something but his LED flickers again and he immediately shuts it. There’s a flutter of tension in his jaw and a pause before he finally speaks. 

“I will wait in the car,” he says. 

He turns quickly on his heel and walks out of the door. Gavin shakes his head at the back of the closed door for a second. 

Jesus Christ, he thinks, dragging his palm down his face. 

* * *

  
  


**12.07.2039**

**14:23**

**Set designation to: Nines.**

Nines stares at his tiny attempt at a smile in the patent surface of his shoes, a little dusty from waiting at the road-side. He’s getting better at it. 

“Fuckin’ machine,” Gavin grumbles, the words half-slurred around the cigarette in his mouth. Nines can’t help but look up at that. It’s strange to find those words are no longer directed at him. Gavin is elbow-deep in the bonnet of their rental car, the sleeves of his pale dress shirt rolled up as far as they’ll go, stained with grease. 

“This was much easier before they replaced it all with electric shit,” he grimaces as his hands come away dark with cooling lubricant. “I used to have a Toyota Camry. Mom got it for my sixteenth birthday- loved that thing.” He stretches and pulls a face as his bones audibly click. “Fuck this shit.”

With blackened fingers, he starts to undo his shirt, one by one smearing each button with grime, before peeling it off completely. He screws it into a ball and tucks the stained material beneath a windscreen wiper. Nines would protest that if it weren’t for the fact that at that moment his vision seems to glitch, a stripe of pixelated colour for a second, before his ocular implants stabilise. Gavin unwittingly wipes his face with the back of his hand, dark smudges of oil left in trails across his forehead, hair damp with sweat and sticking up in spikes and Nines’ processors stutter again. 

The human body fascinates Nines; he supposes because he knows he was made in its image. The best of humanity inspired all that he is. But it’s still strange seeing it in real life. Especially one as lived-in as Gavin’s. He’s riddled with scars- one particular long one licking up his right ribcage like a gruesome smile. Nines was engineered in a lab, made piece by piece to perfection, by the top scientists in the country. Each facet of his being was designed and tested repeatedly to create a faultless end product. Everything impressive about him is down to the engineers on the RK design team. A process he himself had no hand in. 

But Gavin's body is something so unique, his own personal map of scar tissue, birthmarks and freckles. A product of years of police academy training and knife fights and rigorous gym sessions. Every line of taught muscle and the strength within it was earnt. In that sense, Nines thinks that the human body is impossibly strong to endure so much just to undergo change. And yet simultaneously so fragile. He eyes the reddening skin on Gavin's cheeks, the tips of his ears and shoulders, soon to blister in the hot, midday sun. 

Gavin leans back into the bonnet, bracing his weight on his left arm, cigarette still firmly stuck between his teeth. Nines’ gaze drags down the various planes of his body, allowing himself to follow the curiosity he denied himself earlier that day in the motel room, following the wet trail of perspiration that gets lost somewhere in the soft hair below his navel. For some inexplicable reason, Nines feels the sensors in his mouth prickle, his tongue suddenly heavy with the need to produce an excess of analysis fluid. An unusual system glitch. He swallows heavily and feels his facial features make the small transition into a deeper frown, eyes still lingering on the way the human’s jeans sit on his hipbones. 

Nines thinks back to this morning and the human’s hair wet and slicked back against his head from the shower, stood obnoxiously in his towel, dripping on the floor. There’s a strange fluttering sensation in his processors, like a glitch but less irritating. 

Gavin looks up suddenly and they lock eyes awkwardly.

“Uhh... you okay, tin-can?” he drawls, cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth. He taps his temple with his finger. 

Nines isn’t sure why but he doesn’t want to tell Gavin about the glitch. He makes a note to run a full system scan later in stasis but smooths his facial features back to neutral. 

“Software update,” he says simply. 

“Huh,” Gavin says, bringing his cigarette up but then pausing just before his lips, the ash dropping from it like snow. “Thought you’d red ringed on me for a second.”

RK900 blinks entirely unnecessarily at the unfamiliar phrase. 

“Excuse me?”

Gavin grins, rolling the cigarette to the corner of his mouth while he digs about under the hood. His gaze drops momentarily back to the engine as he twists something unseen back into place but then he looks up again with a smirk,

“Y’know, like an xbox.”

RK900 purses his lips on impulse at the comparison, his referencing system automatically pulling up a hundred different internet articles about the famed hardware failure.

“I am,” he begins slowly, “the most advanced piece of artificial intelligence ever built by mankind...” but Gavin interrupts him by closing the bonnet of the car with a slam.   
  


“So you’re telling me you don’t need me to blow into your disk drive?” 

The human leans against the side of the car, arms folded, fingertips leaving dark smudges on his biceps as he cocks his head with a lop-sided grin. 

Nines’ processors stutter a little at that, the HUD in his vision glitching momentarily, 

“I...I don’t have a...” 

Gavin shakes his head, still laughing and picks the cigarette from between his teeth and takes a long drag. 

“I’m fucking with you, Nines.”

“I am aware,” Nines says bluntly once his system recalibrates. Gavin grins again, flicks his cigarette end into the desert and retrieves his crumpled mess of a shirt from beneath the windscreen wiper. Nines resists the urge to wrinkle his nose as the human puts the soiled rag back on as if it weren’t now a completely different shade of grey. Gavin goes to get back in the car but pauses for a second, then turns back to Nines. 

“Hey, if it makes you feel better the xbox 360 is one of my favourite machines ever made,” he grins and claps Nines on the shoulders. “Take it as a compliment.”

Gavin gets back into the car and Nines follows suit, closing the door a little louder than usual.

“Of course,” he says as he settles into the leather of the passenger seat. “What an accolade to take second place to a  _ games console _ released over thirty years ago.”

Gavin makes a face that says  _ ‘fair enough’ _ then puts the keys in the ignition. 

  
“Who said anything about second place?” He says, completely deadpan. He twists the keys and the engine roars back to life. “Hey, look- it worked.”

Nines stares at the human as he presses a few buttons on the dashboard, cycling impossibly fast through the local radio stations until he seems satisfied. He doesn’t look at Nines again. Just turns the music up loudly and takes great pleasure in driving over the speed limit down the deserted road. 

* * *

  
  


The lights in the 24/7 convenience store do nothing to soothe Gavin’s headache. Too bright and too clinical, lighting up all the labels of all the brands til his head is swimming with all the names, too tired to comprehend the meanings behind the words. He thinks he might have been staring into the refrigerator for about five minutes now, watching the condensation clouding the glass gently spread. He’s tired. And irritable as fuck. They’ve spent most of today interrogating potential suspects in a new case. Fresh corpse, same pattern of evidence, different killer. Or so Nines thinks. 

He sighs. It’s starting to look like they might be down here in New Mexico for a little longer than two weeks. He opens the door with clumsy hands to try and get a better look at the beer. The chill is welcoming, licking across his forehead where damp strands of his hair have settled. It’s late. Maybe early. He’s not sure. But it’s still hot and he’s fucking tired. He grabs the nearest case of cheap beer and makes his way to the cashier. He throws down a few notes and grumbles a non-response when the lady behind the till tells him to have a good night. 

Nines is stood outside waiting for him. Not sat in the car or leaning against it like a normal human. No, he’s stood, hands clasped behind him, dripping in the cherry-red glow of the neon liquor sign like a weirdo. 

He blinks unnecessarily and turns when Gavin pushes the door open with a clatter. 

“Detective,” he says, lips still parted long after the sound leaves his mouth. 

There’s something about the muggy night air and the feverish light from the store sign that has the breath caught in Gavin’s lungs like a knife-wound to the ribs. 

Nines takes a step forward, arms outstretched. Gavin scrunches his face up in confusion at the movement until he feels the cool synth-skin of Nines’ fingers touch his own as he takes the crate from his hands. 

Cool. Not cold. 

“I can carry it myself,” Gavin grouses but he’s already relinquished hold to the android. 

Nines’ mouth quirks a little at the corner. Almost a smile. And the knife in Gavin’s ribs twists. 

He finds his idle hands suddenly hot, his palms itchy, and delves into his jacket pocket for his smokes. He stalks round to the bonnet of the car and sits on the edge, furiously flicking the flint of the zippo until the flame blooms long enough to light his cigarette. He hears Nines carefully open the passenger door and place the crate of beer on the back seat, then the close of the door and he waits expectantly for him to open the passenger side and get in. Instead, the sound of footsteps circles the car and Nines appears in his peripherals. Gavin keeps his eyes trained forwards, chewing the end of his cigarette as he scoots in to sit beside him. 

The android settles into a comfortable sitting position on the bonnet, folds his hands in his lap and turns to look at Gavin expectantly.

“Can I help you?” Gavin grumbles, taking the cigarette from his lips and rolling it between his thumb and forefinger agitatedly. It’s late. He’s tired. And yes, he’s taking it out on his partner. But the growing headache behind his eyes means he can’t really bring himself to care. 

“I only predicted a 32% chance of conflict if I were to join you,” Nines says simply, “I decided to take that chance.”

Gavin briefly considers making good on that 32% but realises, annoyingly, that he actually doesn’t mind the company. 

“You wanna hold my hand while you’re at it too?” He jibes weakly, turning to look at Nines. The android starts, his face suddenly earnest, eyes dropping to the hand resting on the knee of his jeans. Gavin finds it twitches reflexively under that gaze. 

“Should I?”

“No.” 

_ Jesus Christ.  _

A full swirl of yellow on the little mood ring despite the blushing light and Gavin feels his cheeks warming. 

“Your heart rate has increased significantly,” Nines comments, cocking his head curiously. 

“You’re creeping me out, that’s why!” Gavin closes his eyes for a second and pinches the bridge of his nose. When he opens them again Nines is still staring at him, that one unruly curl falling with the tilt of his head.    
  


“Oh,” Nines says quietly. He turns to face forwards slowly. “I apologise.”

The hurt in his voice is uncomfortably palpable. There’s a moment of quiet punctuated only by the electrical fizzing of the neon liquor sign. Gavin takes another deep drag of his cigarette.

“It’s okay,” he says finally on an exhale. 

There’s an even bigger moment of silence. Gavin watches the LED flicker and fade into yellow again for a fraction of a second while Nines’ processes whatever he’s thinking inside that super brain of his. When he speaks again, it’s with renewed confidence, as if he’s come to his own conclusions. 

“You still seem uncomfortable around me,” he says, lacing his fingers together on top of his knees, his left thumb rubbing back and forth against the synth-skin on his hand. 

“I’m not,” Gavin answers a little too quickly. 

“They designed me to be intimidating,” Nines continues, as if dismissing Gavin’s answer as the lie it so obviously was. “You are not the only one.”   
  


“I’m not intimidated by you.”

Another lie. 

“Are you scared of me?” This time Nines turns to look at him, pinning him with that trademark cool stare. A little unfair. His face is lit up by the red lights and it makes him look softer. More human but still terrifying.    
  


“Nope,” Gavin answers, emphasising the ‘p’ with a pop to sound unbothered. Make that a hat-trick. He flicks the end of his cigarette off into the night. 

Nines looks at him like he doesn’t believe him, eyes narrower than usual, and Gavin wonders what the point of all these questions really is. He suspects Nines has inbuilt lie-detecting software anyway. He sighs and leans a little toward the android. 

“Look, they what…” He starts in a tone which he hopes makes him sound confident- “gave you grey eyes, made you less...soft-looking or whatever. But they kept the-” he pokes at Nines’ cheek with a slight flash of a grin, “-cute dimples and the freckles? Buncha idiots. You’re not intimidating.”

Gavin retracts his finger almost immediately but not before noting how surprisingly soft Nines’ face is, a fact Gavin wasn’t prepared for and actually instantly regrets finding out. He hopes Nines doesn’t notice the way he shakes his hand as if he can shake off the silky feeling but the android’s gaze follows the movement. Gavin leans back reflexively to put more space between them. 

“Cute,” Nines says, repeating the word back to him. 

“Objectively,” Gavin adds. As if that can save him.

Nines hums contemplatively. Gavin glances at him then, taking in his face in profile, aflame in the red light of the storefront. More often than not these days, he forgets that Nines is made of plastic and metal and wires. All wrapped up and carefully sealed in pretty wrapping paper. He’d long since accepted android sentience as a legitimate thing but the intricacies of deviancy and emotions still confuse him. He watches Nines perfect teeth gently worry the flesh of his lower lip in a way that betrays his nervousness. If that’s what it is. Or perhaps it’s just a habit he’s picked up from watching and mimicking humans. Gavin is never quite sure. 

“I would like us to be friends, Detective,” Nines says eventually. His voice cutting through the quiet of the night. 

“Then you gotta stop calling me that,” Gavin grouses. “S’not my name.”

“ _ Gavin _ .”

The name sounds strange coming from Nines’ velvety voice. Gavin shakes his head like it’s an insignificant thing and shrugs.

“There you go.”

Nines shifts a little on the hood of the car so the metal creaks. He looks nervous again. 

“Maybe we could do something outside of work this weekend,” he says suddenly.

Gavin scrunches his face up in confusion.

“Like what? Sunbathe?”

Nines’ face falls a little, as much as it can when calibrated to showcase a limited range of emotion, his LED flickering slightly. 

“Well,” he starts. “We have already watched a movie together. And we have breakfast together most days, albeit I do not technically join in.” His LED flickers again and he licks his lips. “The internet suggests we could go shopping.”

“No,” Gavin snorts. 

“Or for a walk,” Nines suggests. 

“In the desert?”

“We could visit a local attraction.”

He’s reading these off a list he’s pulled off the internet, Gavin thinks. He tries not to laugh at the earnest look on the android’s face but he lets out a little snort. 

“Seen one, seen ‘em all.”   
  


“I have not seen any,” Nines says, this time his brow furrowing into that single crease of frustration. “This is the first time I’ve ever been outside of Detroit.”

Gavin sighs. Way to make him feel like an asshole. Fucking hell, this android is going to be the death of him. 

“Okay,” he says with resignation, digging into his pocket for another cigarette.

“Okay?” Nines blinks. 

“If you can find somewhere you want to go...within reason- I’m not driving for hours on my day off…” Gavin watches the tiny movements in Nines’ face, the little lift in his eyebrows as he speaks and feels something twist in his stomach. “...then we can go.”

“Really?” Nines asks cautiously like Gavin might be about to laugh and say he was fucking with him again. 

“Yes,” Gavin sighs. 

Nines smiles then. Like, an actual smile. It’s small, like the corners of his mouth sort of angle up slightly and his eyes go all squinty. Gavin didn’t even realise his face could do that. It’s kinda stupid. But it still carves its way into Gavin’s chest and makes a home in his lungs so he can’t breathe. 

“I would like that,” Nines replies. 

  
  


* * *

Nines stares at the peeled paint of the aged ceiling of their motel room, the stucco glowing ruby red every other second from the lazy blinking light of the vacancy sign outside. A hot brand against the night sky, peeping behind the dated floral curtains. There's enough light pollution, even here at the edge of the city, to smother the stars and Nines can't help but empathise. He doesn't feel heat per-say but he sees the dry, cracked earth and the dust on the roads. Feels the bristling irritation from his partner when they get out of the car at midday to spend another afternoon interrogating delinquents. 

"Don't you have another shirt?" Gavin had grumbled, the cloth of his own already damp in places from sitting against the leather seats of the car. Nines had thumbed the edge of his turtle neck before he could stop himself; an impulse born out of a desire to fit in. It's not something he was programmed to feel. But deviancy and his role as the permanent object of Gavin’s ridicule has allowed it to bloom. He feels uncomfortable more often than not these days. 

Even now, sat pin-straight against the headboard of his- arguably useless- bed in their twin room, he feels strange. Their room smells like stale cigarettes and dust and it coats his sensory receptors like he’s being smothered in the fusty, plump coverlet the detective has got wrapped loosely around him. 

The human is snoring gently, his left hand splayed across his bare chest, legs twisted around the duvet so that there’s only a flash of the obscene boxer shorts he’s wearing and a lot of bare leg. The air conditioning unit barely works, simply rattling noisily against the ceiling. Its settings are illogical and slip occasionally so the cool air is suddenly overpowering and the detective's skin breaks out in gooseflesh in his sleep. 

Nines blinks unnecessarily- a habit he’s not sure he should have developed even post deviancy- and straightens the fabric of his suit pants. Perhaps he should also invest in some pyjamas. He adds it to his mental list of things to do. 

He often finds himself here, in the early hours of the morning, in some seedy motel on the outskirts of a godforsaken town, watching his partner's shallow sleep. He had seen early on that the human suffered from insomnia- too much coffee and too many nightcaps to be anything else. And when he does sleep, the rest is fitful and brief. A lot of tossing and turning, sometimes talking too, although nothing coherent. Sometimes he wakes with what sounds like a scream and gets up before dawn to smoke. Nines doesn’t bother him about it. Perhaps next time he will go and join him. Or maybe he will just let him leave, too scared to push the little tentative friendship that has formed between them. 

Nines sighs, a habit he’s certainly inherited from Gavin, and lets his head fall back until it hits the headboard. He wonders if he will end up foul-mouthed and clumsy too, absorbing all the tiny quirks, like a sponge. He thinks about Gavin’s grumpy morning face. A little too much stubble and the creases around his eyes more prominent, a bruising purple tint to his eye, fingertips clasped precariously around the edge of a takeaway coffee cup. The gruff grumble in his voice as he leans against the bonnet of the car and sticks a cigarette between his teeth. The agitated tap, tap, tap on the steering wheel when they drive too fast down the crumbling roads and the tuneless song he hums under his breath. The way he leans on his elbows when they sit side-by-side when they’re interviewing suspects, shifting his weight on his chair and scuffing his shoes across the floor noisily. He thinks about the way their knees touch, the maddening heat of his body through his jeans. When their hands accidentally brush when passing case files and Gavin withdraws like he’s burned. How when they’re alone, sometimes, he doesn’t look him in the eye. Not properly. 

He wonders then why his processors lag when he does. 

Gavin groans in his sleep, drawing Nines’ attention to him. His heart rate is elevated. Restless and rustling amongst the papery motel sheets, lying in a bed of dusky flowers bathed in red from the lights outside and the impending dawn. He looks fragile; strangely small. Gavin groans again and Nines finds himself standing up, brow furrowed as he watches as the human twitches. 

Another noise. Less muffled. 

More like a strangled scream.

“Gavin?” Nines says cautiously, taking a step forward in the darkened room. Gavin twists in the covers, and there’s another noise like a muffled yelp. He stares down at the twitching, shivering form slumped against the worn mattress, and Nines feels a tightening sensation in his body, a little below his thirium pump regulator. A kind of odd tension beneath the faux-sternum that protects the whirring hive of his biocomponents. He easily picks up on the human's raised heart rate, the heavy perspiration, the jerky, fitful sleep; he doesn't need to run diagnostics to know Gavin suffers from some form of night terrors. 

Gavin’s eyeballs chase some far off dream behind his eyelids, the perspiration heavy on his lashes like he's been crying. Nines leans over him, appraising the sight and noticing the subtle changes in his own body, the way his fingers itch to do something- although what, he can't be sure. His ocular processors drift to parts of the human he's been programmed to hone in on. The weakest points; the quickest way to immobilise a target. His temple, where a bead of sweat is threatening to roll down his face. That hot slip of skin on his throat beneath which the human's pulse flutters defiantly. The clavicle, so fragile and prone to fracture under pressure. The apex of his ribcage. The soft flesh of his stomach. The groin. The kneecaps. As Cyberlife’s finest, he was designed for intimidation not integration. Where RK800 might see a human in distress, he had been programmed to see weakness. Or so he had thought for so long.

Another glance at the human's skin, damp and raised in goose flesh, elicits that tightening sensation again and he puts a knee to the mattress, hovering above him. His extends his hand, his palm ghosting over the human's chest, brow furrowed. His HUD may as well be a crosshair, with the way his vision roves across his body, searching...searching... but coming up blank as the feeling in his chest grows. He doesn't have any base protocols for this. He was not designed to  _ care _ . 

He has a strange moment then of what can only be described as clarity. He realises, his brow furrowing deeper as he processes the thought, that that really is exactly what he’s feeling. The urge to care. 

He  _ cares  _ about Gavin.

He wants to shut the feeling down immediately, filing it away to some remote part of his brain, because it goes against everything in his programming. Yet the instability in his code remains, a niggling itch, because he can’t fight it. It’s been there much longer than he originally thought, he realises. The reason for all the impulses. The need to be  _ liked. _

His fingers come to pause, outstretched, hovering above Gavin’s solar plexus as the human’s breathing seems to catch and he wonders whether to wake him.

* * *

  
  


There's a feeling like a rising tide, like he will surely drown as the pressure in his chest seems to grow. There's a fizzy crackle in his ears, pins and needles in his limbs, like he's trapped in the whirring static of a broken television screen. He knows this feeling. The impending fear. He tries to sit up but he can't, weighed down by an unseen presence atop his ribs. He feels the blood on his hands although he can't see it in the dark. He knows soon he won't be able to breathe. The static in his ears soon becomes a siren, wailing through his brain til it feels like his ears might be bleeding down his cheeks. It keeps getting louder- or is that the pounding of his own blood? There's another noise too, far off and dream-like. It could be a voice. 

Yes, yes that's it. 

Urgent and commanding. But not cruel. He's vaguely aware of it calling his name. 

“Gavin?”

There's a figure now too. Dark, tall, featureless. And the fear again. The overwhelming feeling of drowning. 

"Gavin!"

There's a sensation then that can only be described as being propelled forward by the tide, wrenching him up by his lower ribs, a tight hold on his sternum, until he surfaces and the roaring in his ears is replaced by the ringing silence of the night. His whole body feels like it's on fire, ripples of static energy licking over his skin as he becomes aware of the hands on his shoulders and the tight, smothering feeling of the blankets around him. 

His newly awoken eyes begin to adjust to the shimmering darkness of the room around him and he chokes on a scream. The sound torn from his throat. The figure flinches, as if its been struck by the noise itself. 

“Gavin-” the figure begins to say and  _ fuck _ , he knows that voice.

“What the fuck do you want?!” Gavin hisses.

“Gavin-” 

He rounds on his bedside table for his gun. His fingers collide with something heavy and metallic, which slides off the side and out of reach, and his fingertips find the table lamp switch instead. He decides that's a good enough alternative and snaps on the light. 

Reeling from the bright, yellow light Gavin recoils into the cushions as his eyes adjust. The figure before him swims in his vision until the air stops shimmering like a nuclear blast and he realises who is stood over him.

“Get away from me you f-f-fucking-” Gavin stammers, batting Nines’ hands away from him and scrambling out of bed, dragging the floral coverlet with him. Nines stands still as a statue, LED flickering yellow like a lighthouse in a storm. 

“Gavin,” Nines tries again, raising his hands defensively. “You were screaming.”

Gavin practically folds in on himself into a crouch, face in his hands, breathing heavy and erratic.  _ Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, get it together, Reed.  _

“Jesus...fuck,” he breathes as evenly as he can with his heart beating against his ribcage like a jack-hammer. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“You were already screaming in your sleep before you woke up and saw me," Nines says slowly, his voice low and even, as if he's talking to a cornered animal. "I cannot be to blame for that.” He adds at the end, tucking his hands behind him. Gavin vaguely registers at the back of his head how sheepish the android looks but it's clouded by the mortification he feels spreading like a flame across his cheeks.

“No," Gavin growls. "But you’ll be to blame when I have a fucking heart attack." He drags both palms down his face. He's suddenly vividly aware of the fact he's not wearing anything but his boxer shorts. He exhales through his teeth and sets about looking for his jeans. 

“Do not be dramatic," Nines says and when Gavin shoots him a furious look, his forehead creases. "You are not in danger of entering cardiac arrest.” 

The human pulls his jeans out from under the bed and steps into them. 

"No offense Nines but right now I could do without your android superpower bullshit,” Gavin spits, his tongue hitting the back of his teeth with such force on the ‘t’ that it’s a wonder the android doesn’t cower. 

Instead Nines just stares at him, wide-eyed like a deer in headlights. 

“I apologise if I overstepped-” Nines begins. 

“I’m going for a smoke,” Gavin interrupts before the android can finish. He doesn’t want to hear Nines apologise for being a decent person. He doesn’t want to hear any of it. It’s not his fault. None of this is. 

But that doesn’t mean Gavin wants his pity either. 

He roots in his jeans pocket and pulls out the slightly squashed carton of cigarettes and sticks one behind his ear. He pauses before he pulls the screen door open and turns to look back at the android. Nines is stood like he doesn’t quite know what to do, like his processors have all overloaded at once and he’s frozen.

“Oh and this time I don’t need a babysitter,” he says, as harshly as he can so the android won’t attempt to follow. He knows it’s not fair but he needs to be alone. He always does. 

Outside, it’s dawn. The sky is rose and gold, light setting fire to the glassy surface of the water and illuminating the tacky parasols that stand to attention along the edge of the pool. 

He makes quick work of two cigarettes and rolls the filter end of a third between his thumb and forefinger, watching the sunrise over the east-side of the motel parking lot. He’s already been here twice before this week. The first two times Nines had had the decency to pretend to be in stasis. Not tonight. 

He sighs.

He perches at the edge of a sun lounger, the slats digging into the back of his knees- cigarette in one hand, lighter in the other- breathing as deeply and evenly as he can muster. This is the one time of the day where the air doesn’t feel suffocating. Funny then that he chooses now to chain-smoke his way through the rest of his cigarettes. 

But Gavin was always good at ruining a good thing. 

He lights the cigarette defiantly and sticks it between his teeth. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, there's a lot of gratuitous half-naked Gavin in this isn't there? Whoops.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin and Nines assist on another case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow time really moves differently in lock-down but it still feels like it's been a year since I last posted. I feel like I've spent a lot of time sat in the garden this week- how's everyone doing? Also, this chapter is super long but I didn't know where to cut it so you get the lot.

“You don’t have to sit and wait with me,” Gavin grumbles, signalling for the waitress to leave the coffee pot on the table. 

Nines doesn't answer; he just watches his attempt to pour a drink, hands shaking, coffee splashing on the plastic table-top til it pools in dark rings and feels- in what could only be the space in his chest where his thirium pump is humming- that strange stirring again of something new. 

He reaches out and takes the coffee pot gently. Gavin is rude but not rude enough to stop him. Colour flickers up his neck and cheeks, like the blooming red rake of a dull scratch. He grumbles a curse under his breath and stares out the window defiantly until Nines is finished pouring. 

Nines leans back in his seat, the vinyl of the booth squeaking a little, as the human grasps the full cup eagerly and takes a big gulp of the coffee. As with everything he does, Gavin drinks it quickly and messily, fingertips still wet from the spillage. Nines watches quietly. He catalogues minute changes in his vitals, the quick swipe of his tongue over his lower lip, the way the tension in his face fades ever so slightly. He still has the tell-tale purple bruises around his eyes though and that pinched look to his brow that suggests he should probably be wearing glasses. His fingers flex against the cup, smearing coffee droplets on the cool porcelain, eyes vacant, either unaware of Nines’ gaze or too tired to care. 

The light from the morning sun trickles through the fronds of the trees outside and across the windows, spilling sunbeams across his face like slicks of honey. It licks down his profile, along the harsher lines, skin suddenly alight. It makes him look younger, Nines thinks, those rough and sharp edges softened by gold. And when Gavin looks up, lips wet and pressed together, brow furrowed, the android notes his eyes seem greener in this light than the muddied-water tone they so often present. 

Nines looks at him objectively then in the crisp halo of morning light, with coffee running down his chin and his patchwork of scars and stubble, and the stirrings in his chest finally shift to become something more fully formed. 

He's just not sure what. 

Gavin undoes the top button of his shirt with clumsy fingers and Nines lets his gaze flicker up once to the bob of his throat as he swallows the last dregs of his coffee. He’s wearing a tie today. Nines has never seen Gavin wear a tie before. It sits uncomfortably, too tightly knotted so that the collar of his shirt lies unevenly. He’s fiddling with the end of it under the table, staring at the pattern- dark blue with white dots- like it’s a puzzle that needs solving. He casts a glance up and their eyes meet. Nines wants to hold his gaze, to say something, maybe reassurance, if he can manage it, that last night has not affected his opinion of him. That 2% of adults suffer from night terrors and the number is likely to be higher since people don’t always remember having them. That he’s okay.

Instead, the android overlays and reviews footage pertinent to this morning’s investigation in his vision for the fourth time and flicks between the mugshot and the crime scene photos on the surface hologram on his palm. Gavin’s eyes dart up once or twice again at the movement of his index finger over the flat display but he does not speak. 

Neither of them do. 

Not until Gavin gets up, knocking the empty cup over as he does, so it clatters loudly against the tabletop, and Nines has to pick it back up with steady fingers and place it down carefully. Gavin mutters something inaudible under his breath and throws a few dollar bills and a handful of change down before shrugging into his leather jacket. 

They head out into the cool light of the early morning. It’s still quiet out. Nothing but the chittering buzz of cicadas and a few far off cars, driving down the dusty distant roads. 

He watches Gavin fumble with the car door and his seatbelt; the shake of his fingers, the heavy sighs. The light is pale and unforgiving and Nines can really see the dark circles under the papery skin below the human’s eyes, sunk into the hollows of his skull. So fragile. Again, Nines fights the urge to break the silence between them but the daylight is too harsh, the air too clear, too open and he shies away from the idea almost as soon as it forms. He wishes Gavin would let him drive instead but he remembers last night-  _ I don’t need a babysitter- _ and he presses his lips together in pained silence instead. 

They drive to their first appointment of the day; Gavin tapping his lit cigarette against the side of the steering wheel, dropping ash onto his jeans with every beat, the radio turned up loud perhaps in a hope to quell any conversation before it can start. Nines takes note and instead contents himself with watching the peach glow of the road-side dust clouds in the early morning sunlight and the way the grass bends and waves as the car drives by. 

When they get to the police station, after an hour or so of driving town-to-town, the Chief makes a point of looking Nines up and down. Gavin doesn’t seem to notice, just steps forward with his usual brashness and greets him with a heavy handshake.

“Detective Reed,” Gavin says then gestures to the android. “This is my partner: Ni-  _ RK900 _ .”

Nines notes that it’s the first time Gavin has ever referred to him as that: his  _ partner _ . It sends a pulse of something strange and electric up his spine, despite this morning’s awkwardness. He shakes it off and reaches out to shake the man’s hand but the human casts Nines a tight-lipped smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and turns back to Gavin. 

“We appreciate you comin’ down here,” he says in a pointed tone. Nines’ social module was an aspect of his development that was generally overlooked in favour of more progressive software, but even he picks up on the frostiness of the address. The Chief hands Gavin a tablet with the folder of evidence open on the screen and doesn’t cast another look at Nines. 

Gavin flips through the photos on the tablet, for a quick review of the evidence. He pauses over a school-style photo of the victim: a young girl, around fourteen in age, bright eyes, wide smile. He looks pained. There’s a fog over his eyes as he stares at the photo and Nines can pinpoint the exact moment he snaps himself out of it, his gaze becoming more focused, as he swipes the photo to the side to look at a picture of her corpse. His jaw sets instantly. Nines watches with something that could be vague admiration as Gavin then proceeds with a line of enquiry about the forensic reports, questioning the pieces of evidence with every flick of his wrist. The Chief isn’t much help but he concedes to let both him and Gavin into the observation room while they wait for the local police to finish questioning the suspect. 

Nines watches Gavin pace the observation room, with the gait of a pit bull that’s been chained up too long, the tension in his jaw rolling. The screen separating them from the interrogation room brings up the overlay of the police database, a selection of photos, key dates and co-ordinates, the words flickering on and off as the information loops. It’s stuff they’ve already been debriefed on but Gavin stares nonetheless, each piece of information clearly ticking over in his brain. 

The suspect in this new case is different to the ones they’ve been previously looking at. The surgical nature of the wounds had the original team looking for an android. The guy they’ve pulled in is definitely human and with an interesting history of past crimes as well as a stint as a dental assistant a few years back. 

“That could explain the precision of the cuts,” Gavin mumbles, more to himself than to Nines. Another set of information flickers past regarding a cold-case he was a suspect in a few years ago involving the murder of a child. There was never enough evidence to convict him despite him fitting the profile of the killer. “Son of a bitch,” Gavin grunts, scratching at the stubble on his chin.

John Irvine is 185cm tall and around 145lbs. Nines doesn’t put much stock in human appearance but even he will admit the suspect looks...unpleasant. He has a curved spine that makes him look like a vulture and eyes like a predator, bulging and staring vacantly forwards as the local detective tries and fails to get anything out of him. 

They wait in the observation room, watching the seconds tick by on the projected 24-hour clock on the screen. Nines isn’t bothered by the air quality the way a human would be but even he can admit that the soaring temperatures outside and the lack of quality air conditioning leaves the atmosphere feeling thick and heavy. Gavin bristles beside him like a crackling live wire, as though he’s going to let off an electrical discharge at any second.

Nines flexes his hands at his sides itching with the impulse to do something, perhaps to put a steady hand on his shoulder, but he predicts a 75% chance of conflict should he try. Gavin has already worked himself up into this state of prickly instability and Nines isn’t sure if he can drag him out while they’re in this environment. Better to let him work out his frustrations and if there’s one place Gavin truly excels, it’s the interrogation room. 

Gavin is good at getting in their heads and under their skin; a quality Nines can attest to when he watches the way the human will crack the bones in his neck or lick his lips before talking, leaning over the photos on the tablet to make the confined space in any given interrogation room seem smaller. Sometimes Gavin calls him closer to look at something and Nines will pour over the more intricate details of the case, calculating their proximity in a background task that started without his authorization. Sometimes the space between them feels too small, too intimate, and their thighs brush under the table and Nines’ pseudo-skin prickles, the sensors over-stimulated. A casual intimacy Nines isn’t used to.

When they’re finally called in, Gavin enters the interrogation room like a bulldozer. He pulls back one of the chairs and it screeches across the floor. Nines settles into the one next to him and prepares to step in if the suspect becomes volatile. Most of the humans they interview won’t speak to Nines; it’s not too dissimilar from Detroit although, there’s less understanding in their gazes. More fear. This one, however, looks straight past Gavin to him, with a starved curiosity, vacant eyes roving over his body in a way which makes every electrical pathway in Nines’ vertebrae itch. 

He doesn’t react, just folds his hands in his lap as he hones in on the suspect’s vital signs, watching the flickering display open up into his vision. 

Gavin introduces them but Irvine just blinks, his watery eyes fixed on the android. When the human doesn’t react Gavin sighs irritably and licks his lips. He brings up photos of the crime scene on the tablet and leans over to show Irvine. Gavin on any given day is such a presence he can make a room feel small just by being in it; on days like today, when there are beads of sweat rolling down his neck and an energy that threatens to crackle and sizzle if you get too close, it's almost stifling. But the suspect doesn’t even blink, just continues to stare hungrily at Nines. 

Gavin huffs out a disbelieving laugh, shakes his head and clicks his fingers in front of the man’s face obnoxiously. 

“Hey, Asshole!” He snaps. “You deaf or what?”

“Why isn’t it talking?” Irvine says suddenly. Nines looks up from the case details on the tablet to find the suspect is still staring at him. 

“I’m the one asking the questions, buddy,” Gavin says, rapping his fingers against the desk in annoyance at being ignored. 

“Is there something you would like to ask me, John?” Nines asks calmly, maintaining eye contact.

Irvine leans back in his chair, the most he’s moved all morning, and smacks his lips in a way which makes Nines’ upper lip curl out of impulse. 

“I’m wondering why they spent so much money on you if you’re just going to sit there looking pretty,” Irvine says in a thick voice. 

Gavin visibly bristles beside him and goes to say something but Nines holds his hand up as if to say  _ it’s okay _ . The suspect has until this point been fairly unresponsive and he’s keen to get any kind of conversation going. He steeples his fingers in what he hopes is a display of open body language and leans forward a little. 

“My initial design was based on the RK800 prototype but I was built primarily as an infiltration unit,” Nines answers simply. “Interrogation is not my core protocol but I am equipped with a social module.”

“So you’re just not much for talking?” Irvine asks, his lip curling into a slight sneer. “What...they forgot to program your manners?”

Gavin sighs and leans over the desk, visibly irritated.

“You seem to know an awful lot about-”   
  


“I’m not talking to you,” Irvine snaps, eyes never leaving Nines. “How long did it take to break through all that fancy coding then, hm?” he continues, ignoring Gavin’s growing irritability. “Personality matrix like yours...bet they had to really lock down on those emotions…”

Nines blinks unnecessarily and clocks the slight increase in the suspect’s heart rate. He’s getting a rush from this. There’s something about the way he talks, like he himself is interrogating Nines, as if he’s enjoying it. The android turns to Gavin for a moment, as the human is half hovering out of his seat as if he’s about to launch himself over the desk at Irvine. Nines flashes him a warning look and Gavin, albeit begrudgingly, lowers himself back into the chair with a scowl. 

“How about we talk about you, John,” Nines states rather than asks, pulling the tablet with the case file details over to his side of the desk. “Perhaps we can discuss what you were doing on the night of May 11th? Around 9.15pm? It's the suspected time of death for Alison Davis.”

The sneer on Irvine’s face fades a little as he sees that Nines isn’t going to play ball. He leans forward slightly and licks his lips.

“You can read, can’t you? Why don’t you tell me.”

“Why don’t you answer the fuckin’ question?” Gavin growls from Nines’ right but Irvine doesn’t flinch. He just continues to stare at the android, face blank and unreadable. 

“I already gave my statement,” he says, his gaze roving around Nines’ face, watching his reaction. 

Nines makes a show of flipping through the virtual case file with his index finger to find his initial witness statement. The room is silent, save for the slight rustle of crisp fabric as Gavin shuffles in his seat and Irvine’s heavy breathing. 

“It says here-” Nines begins, voice low and even as he reads the account, “-you were at a local bar all evening. No witness accounts except the android bartender. Of course…” Nines casts a knowing look to Gavin who sucks his teeth in annoyance as he cottons on to what he’s getting at- “an android’s testimony doesn’t hold up in the state of New Mexico so his memory was probed. And it was found-”

“That I was telling the truth,” Irvine interrupts.

“Indeed. A solid alibi,” Nines nods, lacing his fingers together.

“So what the fuck am I doing back here?”

“Hey,” Gavin snaps, “less of the attitude, buddy.”

Nines ignores him and continues.

“The footage has been reviewed several times by local law enforcement and they could not find anything incriminating in it. It seems by this account that you entered the premises at about 7.35pm and left around closing time...the bar was empty aside from you and the android...not unusual for a Wednesday night or so I’m told.”

“Yeah,” Irvine agrees smugly, leaning back in the little plastic chair so it squeaks. “It’s a small town. Not much traffic mid-week.”

“Exactly. So…” Nines brings up the probed memory footage on the flat lay of his palm and tilts it so that Irvine can see, “why did the android in question feel the need to clean this same area of the bar twice over if he wasn’t expecting more customers?”

Irvine’s face twitches slightly. On Nines’ hand, the POV footage turns to the area of the bar directly above the drinks fridge, the reflection of its LED blinking steadily in the glass as he wipes down the bar. 

“You see I have analysed the footage and it seems to me that there’s a ten-minute window between approximately 9.05 and 9.15 in which he seems to pace the bar in exactly the same trajectory- strange behaviour but not incriminating in itself…” Nines watches Irvine’s reaction carefully, cataloguing the minute pulses of tension in his jaw and around his eyes. He’s trying his best to keep a straight face but Nines was built on the foundations of the RK800; he knows how to unpick a man’s tells. “But then see here-” he leans forward uses his thumb and forefinger to make the display a little bigger “ _ -here _ , he cleans the handle of the fridge, an action which he then repeats 11.03 around an hour and a half later.” 

There’s a moment of silence as both Gavin and Irvine lean over the desk a little to watch the footage play out on Nines’ upturned palm. 

“So?” Irvine says eventually, smacking his lips, his mouth left hanging open obnoxiously. 

Nines resists the urge to sigh. His social module is arguably under-developed in comparison to his predecessor but his partnership with Gavin has given him enough practice with...difficult humans.

“So...again, this is not incriminating in itself. Until you realise that the movements, right down to the reflection of the car driving past in the glass-” Nines zooms in again and enhances part of the footage to show the vague reflection of the vehicle passing, “are repeated again at exactly 11.03.” He skips ahead to the second event and brings the two freeze-frames up next to each other, one on the tablet, the other on the flat of his palm. “Even with the slight differences in colour tone, they are strikingly similar. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Gavin lets out a heavy breath beside him and Nines feels the corner of his mouth twitch up into a slight smirk. Irvine stares at him, holding his gaze as the silence seems to grow between them. Then he exhales and folds his arms, licking his lips. 

“Coincidence.”

Nines’ feels another tug of a smile in his facial calibration software but overrides his features into as calm an expression as he can. 

“It could well be,” he continues, shutting down the video display on his palm and turning the tablet around to face himself again. “And I was sceptical at first. Especially because the video file showed no evidence of tampering. If it had been doctored well...the transitions are seamless and whoever did it would obviously have had to have a vast knowledge of computer programming to be able to erase any evidence of any editing having been performed on the file. And even then,” Nines looks up to meet Irvine’s gaze again, “there’s no solid  _ proof  _ that you overlayed different footage to conceal the fact you left the bar to murder Alison Davis.”

Irvine can’t help betray a little smirk at that. A tiny micro-expression, a flex of the zygomaticus muscles, and a half-blink that Nines’ captures and catalogues. The android straightens up and leans forward, folding his hands neatly over the tablet. 

“However,” he says, voice dropping low, and he sees the little twitch of a reaction in Irvine’s face again. “This case has similarities to another I worked on with the FBI a few months ago. A hack involving a very small device which was placed on a security android in order to override its CPU and implant a virus. This device, when accessed, allowed an individual, not only to have complete control over the android in question while it was attached but also, the ability to re-enter the system remotely after its removal.” The whole time Nines is speaking his eyes flit over Irvine’s body, analysing the smallest movements; the minute flutter of his facial muscles, the increase in his heat-rate, the way his thumb is worrying the knuckle of his index finger. “To do what, you ask? Well, it could be anything from exercising control over the android’s motor functions to manipulate the host to do your bidding, or-” Nines pauses to lean a little further forward, closing the gap between himself and the suspect- “to tamper with memory files to create a fail-safe alibi. Or... _ almost _ fail-safe, in this case.” 

There’s a ringing silence in the room. Neither Gavin nor Irvine react immediately and Nines can’t help the little curve of his mouth as he reaches for the tablet again. Irvine holds his gaze resolutely but his vitals betray the spike of fear that Nines’ last statement instilled in him. Nines continues, opening the footage again with a delicate flick of his wrist. 

“Now, if we could find evidence that such a device was used on the android in question, placed there by yourself of course...well then I would say that that would be grounds enough for an arrest. Would you like to see what else I found on the footage?”

Irvine doesn’t answer. He just stares, the tension in his jaw pulsing menacingly under his papery skin. Nines skips to a specific point in the footage and presses play. 

“At approximately 8.23pm the bartender hands you a drink. There’s a scuffle and a spillage. No harm done, you pat him on the back and…” Nines pauses the footage with a jab of his finger “that’s when you plant the device.”

The image on the tablet flickers to a halt, a perfect freeze-frame of the interaction. There’s another pause; this time Gavin leans over Nines’ shoulder squinting at the image. Irvine’s eyes flicker dangerously to the human and then to the tablet before he lets out a nervous laugh. 

“So, what?” He says, huffing out a breath. “You’re gonna arrest me on the grounds of a crazy theory? You haven’t got any proof. I didn’t stick shit on him!”

“No, you’re right. There’s no evidence in this shot that you put anything on him, this is just a theory of mine,” Nines says like he’s commenting on the weather or the colour of the tiling on the walls. He flicks ahead to another point in the footage where the android leans forward to adjust the straps of his apron in the mirror of the backroom and hits pause. “However, here- if you look closely- you can see the device pinned to the back of his uniform reflected in the glass on the window there.” Nines makes a pinching motion on the screen and the image zooms in on the reflection. “I’d say this gives us grounds enough for a warrant to search your property for any traces of this device or others like it. What do you think, detective?”

Nines turns to Gavin who is frowning, scratching at the stubble on his chin, a smile slowly spreading across his face. 

“Yeah, I’d say that’d be enough to get a warrant.”

“Now, John, is there anything you’d like to say? Or shall we proceed with taping your confession?”

* * *

  
  


Afterwards, the Chief of police shows Gavin into a room with a few other officers and makes a comment about it being too small for any more of them. He doesn’t look at him, but this comment is directed at Nines. Gavin almost says something but Nines lifts his head up and states that he will file a report to the DPD about the suspect’s confession. 

Gavin doesn’t want him to, he realises annoyingly. He wants him with him. The incident with Irvine has set a weight in his stomach that seems to be alleviated a little just by having the android stood beside him. But Nines turns on his heel and heads back into the entrance-way before he can protest. 

The chief was right, the room is small, and smells like sweat and too many humans. Gavin holds his breath as best he can and spends about five minutes relaying Nines’ findings and the confession before the first comment arises. 

“Why are we listening to the findings of a bunch of wires and blue-blood?”

Gavin blinks at him, a void-like sensation growing in the pit of his stomach and the hot flush of something unrecognisable up the back of his neck like he’s been struck. There was a part of him that knew that somewhere, deep down, he had once been exactly like this. He wasn’t even sure when that had changed. He thinks about pulling a gun on Connor- _don’t do it, Gavin-_ and he feels himself bristle as that feeling, buried deep down, evolves into something hot and pricklier. Shame. Guilt, perhaps. 

He looks at the nearest officers, laughing under their breath and elbowing each other. They didn’t know Nines. Not like Gavin did. The pit in his stomach only grows when he sees the way the nearest cop is fingering the barrel of the gun on his desk.

“Can’t believe we’ve gotta let that fucking machine-” he hears him start and it’s just enough to make him snap.

“Hey buddy, that  _ machine  _ just made more progress on this case than your whole team put-together in a fuckin’ month,” Gavin yells, punctuating his point by brandishing the tablet in front of the cop’s face.

“Yeah and yet I’d take the child murderer over the android any day,” the guy says shrugging. “Never know when one of them’s gonna snap.”

“Uh,” Gavin starts, rounding him, “are you fuckin’ deluded?”

“You’re acting like it has feelings,” another guy says laughing. “It doesn’t even act human.” He pulls a vacant scowling face, a crude impression of Nines and Gavin has to shove his free hand in his pocket to keep from punching him.

“Figured you DPD lot would be pretty anti-android, y’know, after everything that happened,” the Chief says, raising his eyebrows. “Not long now until they replace you all with robots, I reckon.”

“He’s not a fuckin’ robot,” Gavin growls, thumbing the inside seam of his pocket. “And you  _ asked  _ for us to come down and assist with the investigation.”

“And we’re  _ very  _ grateful,” the Chief says in an over-exaggerated tone, and as though sensing trouble, steers Gavin out of the room with one arm.

Gavin’s more than aware of the mockery in the words. His own past threats and jibes echoing in his mind as the vision of Connor swims before him at the steps to the archive room. He shrugs the hand off his shoulder and shoves the tablet into the chief’s arms. 

He stalks back into the entranceway, bristling with rage. 

He finds Nines leaning against the window ledge, thumbing through a leaflet on national parks. He has one ankle slung almost casually over the other and Gavin has a funny tight feeling in his chest when he looks at the little slip of skin above his sock and the simulated knot of his ankle bone. 

**_Stop._ **

He looks away. Fixes his face into a less incriminating scowl before Nines can look up. It doesn’t make it any less devastating when Nines notices his approach and lowers the little paper booklet so his pale eyes meet Gavin’s. 

Fucking Christ, Reed get it together. 

He looks at the android for a second too long- always so perfectly put together, from his neat shoelaces right up to the stiff collar of his shirt- and Nines cocks an eyebrow. Sometimes he wonders if Nines just mimics humans for the fun of it. Or if he is really developing these little quirks of his own. His expressions seem looser, a little freer. 

God, he can’t  _ stand _ the way Nines looked at him last night. That mix of concern and pity. Too human. Too real. 

“Are you err...you okay?” Gavin asks, scratching at the back of his neck for something to do with his hands. He’s never been good at remorse. Even worse at saying sorry. But he knows he’s been an asshole all day and he’s going to do his fucking best to put this right. 

“Yes,” Nines says tersely but there’s nothing cold about his tone. He folds the leaflet into a neat square and slips it into his trouser pocket. “How did the de-briefing go?”

“They were ungrateful assholes,” Gavin grouses, fiddling with the knot of his tie. It’s too fucking hot and his skin feels prickly like he’s being strangled by this fucking thing. He sighs and drops his hands exasperatedly as he only proceeds to make the knot tighter. “You wanna uhh…you wanna look at anything more here before we go?”

“No,” Nines says nonchalantly as he stands up and pins Gavin with his grey stare. “I have recorded it all to memory.”

“Oh, right yeah, of course,” Gavin says, rolling his eyes. He goes to leave but Nines holds his arm out to stop him. His skin burns at the contact.

“Come here,” Nines says, turning him back around with a little push. 

Gavin pulls a face as Nines steps closer towards him and then suddenly they’re almost nose to nose and he can feel all of the blood drain from his face. 

“What the f-”

“The Gordian knot pales in comparison to your handiwork,” Nines says, a flicker of something flashing across his face as he tugs on the tie in explanation. 

The reference is lost on Gavin, and he makes a mental note to look it up on his phone at the earliest chance he can get but the train of thought is soon lost to the fact Nines is suddenly very, very close to his face. 

He pinches and pulls at the fabric around his neck, a series of quick, calculated manoeuvres until he succeeds in undoing the mess Gavin had made and the two ends fall lax against his shirt. Nines presses the flat of his palm against the human’s chest in a quick pat, cocking his head as if to say,  _ you’re welcome.  _ Then, with the beginnings of a smirk curling the corner of his mouth, he turns and heads outside. 

* * *

  
  
  


“You mind if we err pull in here?” Gavin asks suddenly. 

Nines wrenches himself out of his thoughts and looks up at the bright convenience store sign. It’s sunset and the sky is a paint palette mix of pink and gold, a stark contrast to the brutalist structure of the building and surrounding parking lot. The shop itself is one of those superstores, a sprawling complex with rows upon rows of flood-lit parking spaces. 

Nines nods and Gavin walks his hands over the steering wheel as he turns into the parking lot and into a space. He gets out of the car and shoves his hands in his pockets, waiting for Nines to get out and shut the door, toeing his shoe into the gravel. 

They walk in together and Nines casts a glance to his right and watches Gavin chewing his lip as they enter. There's a nervous energy again but a little different this time. Effervescent. Like the difference in a storm when it's hot and sticky outside instead of cold.

He’s soon distracted though, the feeling shut off abruptly by the onslaught to his sensors. This is the biggest store Nines has ever been in; it sells everything from food to gardening supplies, down rows and rows of brightly coloured aisles. His eyes widen of his own accord at the sight and he feels a hundred background processes start, scanning every label of his own accord. 

Gavin looks at him with a faint, confused sort of smile,

“I just need to pick up some booze you uh...you wanna look around?” he asks, scratching the back of his neck. Nines nods without even considering and Gavin’s mouth pulls into a lop-sided grin. “Okay tin-can, I’ll meet you at the car.”

Nines meanders through a few of the closest aisles, scanning the products and wondering to himself what each would taste like. He can guess, of course, but even if he used the sensitive scanners on the flat his tongue, he can only really get the chemical breakdown of the food, not replicate the taste. Not like a human can. He could ask Gavin- he looks around to see if he can see where the human has gone but there’s nothing but rows on rows of multicoloured labels. Maybe later. 

Instead, he wanders into the clothing section and pauses, shoes squeaking on the linoleum as he does. There have already been so many comments on this trip about his clothes. He finds his fingertips dancing around the edge of his collar again. He doesn’t have any particularly strong feelings towards his clothes, they are what he was assigned from Cyberlife. The standard-issue slacks, one button-down shirt and one turtle-neck. He didn’t keep the jacket for very long. He rolls his top button between his thumb and forefinger. 

No, he thinks, he doesn’t feel any kind of special attachment to his clothes. They’re just what he’s comfortable in; what he’s used to. But perhaps, if they do end up going somewhere outside of work...he would like something new. Something he can choose for himself. 

He looks at the faceless mannequins wearing their summer clothes, perfectly posed and styled. They’re made of plastic like he is. He doesn’t like any of the outfits. Too bright. He does not think he would feel comfortable wearing those. There’s one on the end wearing a t-shirt, with a button-down over the top, turned up jeans and plain slip-on trainers. The t-shirt is gaudy and the pattern on the over-shirt makes his ocular implants glitch but he thinks the shape and cut of the clothes is preferable to the shorts on the other mannequins. 

He approaches the nearest rack of men’s clothing: plain t-shirts in a variety of colours and designs. He thumbs through the rack, looking at the full spectrum. He flicks past most of the cotton-polyester blend until he finds the ones made of 100% combed cotton, relishing the way the fabric feels against the sensors on the pads of his fingertips. Yes, these ones, he thinks. He passes over a few of the more garish colours until he settles on a shade of dark grey, not quite black but still understated. He finds he prefers darker colours. The shirt he picks is short-sleeved and has a henley neckline, a few buttons down the middle so he can still feel covered. 

Next, he heads to a table of folded denim jeans. Nines isn’t quite sure what the point is of having 25 different cuts of the same fabric but he selects the nearest pair of black ones in his size. The label describes them as light wear and durable- both good traits to have in a pair of jeans, he thinks. Then he grabs the same kind of shoes the mannequin is wearing but in black to match his jeans. 

The next item he finds is a short-sleeved button-down shirt. He’s not sure why it catches his eye. The pattern on the shirt is paisley in thirium blue with accents of gold embroidery. He thumbs the edge of the sleeves gently. He folds it and places it in his basket with the rest of his clothes. 

On his way to the checkout, he passes a wall of graphic t-shirts, some with brands he recognises from the store emblazoned on the front, others that he has to search to understand their meaning. The last one on the right has a NASA logo on it and he finds himself putting it in his basket without really thinking. After all, he does hold a lot of respect for their scientific endeavours.

He feels the corners of his mouth twitch up at the thought. 

Nines leaves with his purchases, heading out into the cooling twilight of the early evening. His feet crunch on the loose grit of the tarmac floor as he approaches the figure leaning against the boot of their car. 

“What- you been buying the whole fuckin’ store?” Gavin says, when he walks up to him, his face scrunched a little in confusion as he eyes the shopping bag Nines is holding. He himself is clutching a bottle of whiskey and a fresh packet of cigarettes, the cellophane crinkling in his grip. He sticks them in his pocket and opens the boot with his free hand, taking Nines’ shopping bag and peeking in at the folded fabric, one eyebrow raised in question.

“I thought it would be prudent to purchase some new clothes,” Nines responds, closing the boot once the bags have been stowed, and then adds, “you have pointed it out on more than one occasion that my outfit is not appropriate for the climate.”

Gavin huffs out a disbelieving laugh.

“Yeah but you didn’t have to-”

“ _ Hey, asshole you ain’t supposed to keep them as pets any more,” _ a voice calls from behind him and Gavin whips around.

There’s a group of men clustered around one of the floodlights a few meters away and the man who spoke steps forward, pushing himself up from where he had been leaning on the pole. Their gazes lock. 

“You got a fuckin’ problem?” Gavin yells, before Nines can stop him. 

The man stalks forwards, the others lurking closely behind. He disappears into semi-darkness as he walks between the pooling light of the overhead bulbs, the filaments fizzing high above them, but when he steps into the beam of the lamp closest to them he smirks, an expression which flashes a lot of teeth. 

“Never seen one like this before,” the guy says, stopping abruptly to look Nines up and down with a hungry sort of curiosity. He makes a show of licking his teeth a little and chewing at the flesh of his lower lip as though he’s deep in thought. “You err...you one of those pretty fuck-me models?”

“The fuck did you just say?” Gavin snaps, whirling around. The man just grins which seems to infuriate the human even more. He shoves the man with the flat of his hand so he stumbles backwards a little, the others behind him visibly tensing, waiting to jump in. “Hey asshole, I’m talking to you.”

“What?” the man laughs, straightening up and stepping forward again so the two men are almost forehead to forehead. “Did I offend your plastic husband?”

“Don’t know when to shut your fuckin’ mouth do you?” Gavin growls.

Nines sees the spike of cortisol levels in the human’s brain and the blinking red warning in his vision that tells him Gavin’s stress levels are climbing. He steps forwards and yanks Gavin back by the hood of his jacket, placing himself between the two men as a barrier.

“Gavin,” he says warningly. Gavin’s breathing is shallow, his face scrunched in that tunnel-vision scowl he has when he’s preparing for conflict. 

“Figure we should see how strong this plastic really is,” Nines hears the man say from his right and feels pressure on his arm as he’s pulled round to face him. Gavin bristles from behind him and growls,

“Okay asshole, that’s it-”

Nines’ pre-constructive software is one of the most advanced features Cyberlife had programmed into him. It has a 94.25% accuracy rate. Up until now, it had never been wrong. Today, however, was one of those occasions he knew would occur eventually, where he- or rather his software- would fail to take into consideration the unpredictability of the human race. Or more, rather specifically, that of Gavin Reed. 

Nines watches his own pre-constructive holograms play out before him in double-time, a perfect simulation of a verbal altercation turned physical, wherein the man before him throws a punch that collides with Nines’ chest, resulting in at least two metacarpal fractures. In the pre-construction, the man reels backwards clutching his hand in pain and Gavin laughs as the rest of them blanch at the sight. 

In real-time, Nines doesn’t even brace for the punch he knows is coming. He watches as the man draws his fist back, knowing full well no human could hit hard enough to damage his chassis. But what he doesn’t expect is for Gavin to step between them, shoulders arched, to take the full force of the fist to his face. 

Gavin stumbles backwards, clutching his face, tripping and falling until he’s lying flat on his back. He swears and rolls over, eyes screwed shut, fingers bloody where they’re holding his nose. He's lit up by the pool of gold light from the overhead lamp, the blood a glossy scarlet, and everything in Nines' head goes deathly quiet for a second. 

“Oh shit, he’s a fucking cop,” one of the men nearest hisses as Gavin groans, face pressed into the tarmac floor of the parking lot, his jacket riding up to expose the badge and gun he has clipped onto his belt. 

Nines has a moment where his priorities are split almost perfectly down the middle in terms of importance, his processors weighing up his options: chase after the attackers or check on Gavin? His HUD blinks as red as Gavin's nose. 

He drops to his knees and rolls Gavin over by his shoulders. The human comes willingly, body shaking and Nines feels his thirium pump skip a full beat with what he can only describe as dread. Gavin squints up at him, trembling, mouth pulled into a grimace beneath his bloody hands. It’s at that point that Nines realises that he’s laughing. He’s covered in grit and his nose is pouring blood, the red pooling in his philtrum, spilling over to his upper lip that’s curved up into an absurd grin. 

“Gavin, you are an  _ idiot _ ,” Nines hisses. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Gavin groans, still half-laughing, exposing his teeth that are painted red. “Why did I do that?”

“Why indeed,” Nines says exasperatedly. He stares at the human in complete disbelief, that this convulsing mess could be the reason his pre-constructive software is filing an error report as they speak. He realises then, as his processors stop stuttering and everything becomes a little clearer, that he has his fingers fisted in the front of the human’s shirt. He disengages his knuckle joints and slips his hand to Gavin’s shoulder instead. “Can you stand?”

“Yeah,” Gavin says slowly, bringing his wet, red fingers away from his nose to support his weight on the tarmac floor. He huffs out another little laugh and shakes his head. “Think so.”

Nines steps back as Gavin clambers to his feet, kicking a cloud of dust and grit up as he does. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and lets out a little laugh as it comes away red as if it’s the first time he’s noticed he's bleeding. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he says thickly, his voice nasal and sticky from the blood in his mouth. 

Nines feels his jaw mechanism clench involuntarily at the blase attitude of the human and something hot and heavy coils in his gut. He holds out his hand palm up. Gavin’s gaze drops to his hand then back up to his face and he cocks a questioning eyebrow.

“Keys,” Nines states. 

“What? Oh,” Gavin’s eyes widen at the realisation. “Right...yeah.”

He digs in his jacket pocket for his car keys. For once, Gavin does not object, holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger with one hand, tossing the keys to Nines with the other. 

Nines gets in and waits, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, thirium pump still a rabbit-heart beat against his artificial ribs, as Gavin gets into the passenger seat. 

Nines doesn’t say anything; he just pulls out of the parking lot, putting himself on auto-pilot, as he replays the altercation over and over again in his mind. Watching every little detail he might have missed when it happened; Gavin’s simmering anger, the crack of the impact, the hot spray of blood. Each way he looks at it there’s still no benefit to the human’s action. Why would Gavin  _ do  _ that?

“You err okay, Nines?” Gavin asks from the passenger seat, his voice interrupting Nines’ tenth replay of the event. The image flickers and fades as the android focuses back in on reality. “Call me crazy but I think the rental car needs an  _ intact  _ steering wheel for us to get our deposit back.”

Nines doesn’t answer straight away. But he becomes suddenly aware of the squeaking noise of the plastic of the steering wheel under his ever-tightening grip and the blink, blink, blink of his yellow LED in the windscreen reflection. He manually disengages his grip and lets out an unnecessary breath, watching the yellow ring slip into cool blue once more. 

“I’m angry,” he says finally. Yes, that’s it. That tightening feeling that seems to be consuming every single one of his pathways. Anger. Yes. A smouldering rage that seems to be spreading through his body from the centre of his chest. 

“Don’t be,” Gavin tosses back, shifting in his chair so the leather of his jacket squeaks, snuffling a little through the blood. “They’re just assholes.”

Nines feels the mechanism in his jaw slow to a grind as he grits his teeth.

“Not at them,” Nines says, enunciating every word as if they were individual sentences. “At  _ you _ .”

There’s another squeak of leather and a pause as Gavin turns to look at him.

“Me?”

“Yes,” Nines says exasperatedly, flexing his hands against the steering wheel. He casts a helpless look at the human in the passenger seat and scoffs when he finds him staring wide-eyed and confused. “Gavin, what you did was completely unnecessary and irresponsible.” He looks back to the road, unable to stop the swooping sensation in his body like someone’s twisted and pulled all the wires in his throat down to his core. He replays a hundred and one different outcomes, all overlayed in his vision at once but his brain seems to linger on one in particular. “What if he had been armed?”

“I’ve taken a bullet before,” Gavin says, scrunching his face a little.

“That’s illogical,” Nines seethes. “Of the two of us, I am the most likely to survive a gunshot.”   
  


“Mm, not necessarily. Even Connor struggled to come back from a headshot. Hank said-”

“Gavin, you’re being deliberately eristic,” Nines growls. And then, bristling at the implication, adds, “and what do you mean: _ ‘even Connor’ _ ?”

“You don’t have any back-up bodies down here, Nines.”

“And you  _ do _ ?!”

Gavin laughs at that.

“You got me there,” he says.

Nines lets out another unnecessary breath. 

There’s a moment of silence where the only noise is the roar of the engine and the rush of the wind past the open windows. The night air is hot and sticky and the breeze does little to stem the torrid atmosphere within the car. Nines casts a glance to the passenger seat where Gavin is wiping his bloody nose on his jacket sleeve. 

“Thank you, by the way,” he says quietly. “As much as I think what you did was stupid, reckless and completely  _ pointless _ ... I appreciate the...sentiment behind it.”

Gavin grins, teeth smeared with blood. 

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

  
  


Gavin tilts his head under the faucet and turns it on. He curses as the water splashes into his eyes but tries his best to clean the dried blood off his face. When he surfaces he finds he’s managed not only to miss half of it but also he has completely soaked his shirt. 

God, he looks a  _ mess _ . 

His nose is already swollen, the purple bloom of a bruise spreading across his cheeks like ink, and a thick crust of blood over his upper lip and chin. Something heavy and nauseating twists in his gut as the man’s voice echoes in his ears-  _ never seen one like this before.  _ The familiarity of the words is not lost on him. He flexes his fingers against the damp grip he has on the basin, smearing little red fingerprints on the cool, white porcelain. 

“Sit down,” a voice calls from behind him. 

He turns and sees Nines in the doorway of their hotel bathroom, gesturing to the closed toilet seat. His face is pinched into that permanent scowl, the one that seemed to have been loosening over the past few days, back with a vengeance. Gavin obeys, shuffling to sit down. Nines has a handful of ice cubes in one fist and a wedge of napkins in the other. He watches in fascination as a bead of water melts off the side of the ice and runs down the android’s wrist. He’s not sure why it makes his mouth go dry. 

Nines puts the napkins down on the edge of the sink and then carefully empties the ice cubes onto them for safekeeping. Then he tilts Gavin’s chin up to look at him. Gavin flinches a little at the chill of his fingers damp from the ice, a stark contrast to the blazing heat of his cheeks. Nines gently moves his face from left to right, pale eyes roving over his face. 

“Still mad?” Gavin asks, gently nudging Nines’ leg with his knee. 

“Your face is filthy,” Nines responds, ignoring the question.

“Sorry,  _ Mom _ .”

The android retreats back into the bedroom and Gavin can hear him rifling through the grocery bags. He comes back with the bottle of whiskey Gavin had bought earlier, the light catching on the liquid inside as he turns it over in his hands. 

“Great,” Gavin says with a lop-sided grin. “I could use a drink.

Nines scoffs and twists the top off the bottle. He pulls out a single napkin, folds it and sloshes a fair amount of the golden liquid onto the paper. Gavin goes to protest but Nines flashes him a look that has him snapping his mouth shut with a click. 

The android holds his chin in place with one hand and dabs at the split skin on his nose and cheeks with the make-shift disinfectant. Gavin sucks a breath in through his teeth at the sting as Nines works at cleaning the grit out of the grazes. He half expects him to be rough with him, to swipe at the broken skin with calculated precision, with no regard for if it hurts or not. Instead, Nines takes his time, gently- almost tentatively- wiping the dirt from his face. Gavin watches the tiny flicker of emotion that presents itself in the little furrow of his brow as he concentrates on the swollen skin of his nose. This close Gavin can count the spray of freckles on his cheeks, the stupidly long eyelashes, the tiny, artificial breaths- not hot like a human, but still warm and weirdly inviting. 

“Y’know,” Gavin starts through gritted teeth, as Nines’ daps at the side of the cheek he’d dragged against the tarmac. “I’ve been in my fair share of bar fights, Nines. I don’t need you to patch me up.”

“Stay still,” Nines says curtly, hitting the side of his jaw with the back of his finger in annoyance. Anyone else might say he still looked angry but Gavin knows him well enough now to see his mouth betray his slight amusement. Gavin presses his lips together so as not to laugh. Instead, he focuses on breathing through the pain, inhaling the earthy kick of whiskey til it makes him dizzy, and Nines’ pretty face swims in his vision. If he isn’t careful Gavin is gonna reach out and press a kiss right to the corner of his mouth where his lips have quirked slightly. 

... _ fuck _ ,  _ what the- _

“I don’t think it’s broken,” the android says softly, snapping him out of his thoughts. “But-” he pulls one of the napkins out from under the ice and wraps a single cube in it- “you need to apply a cold compress for at least fifteen minutes. It will be bruised but this will help ease the swelling.”

He presses the make-shift ice pack into Gavin’s palm when he doesn’t automatically take it. 

Gavin closes his fingers around the little parcel so tight that the cold burns his hands and he relishes the grounding sting on his skin. There’s a roaring in his ears and his heart is suddenly hammering bloody murder against his ribcage. Nines must pick up on it because he narrows his eyes a little, that tell-tale furrow forming between his eyebrows. 

“I-I...right,” Gavin says eventually, forcing the words out in an attempt to break the silence that has fallen between them. “Sure. Cold. Ice. Face.”

Brilliant. He presses the ice to the tender flesh and winces at the sensation. Nines is still staring at him. 

“Gavin, I think you might have a concussion.”

“No, no-” Gavin stammers, "I’m fine I just...uh... gotta piss.”

“Right,” Nines says, in the most unimpressed tone Gavin has ever heard him use. 

“Yeah, I’m fine now…” Gavin makes a shooing gesture with his free hand. Anything to get Nines out of there before he has a complete and utter meltdown. “If you don’t mind.”

Nines lingers for a second, lips slightly parted as though he’s going to say something. But then he nods and retreats out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him. 

A wave of nausea washes over Gavin and he doubles over, squeezing his eyes shut against the sensation. The ice falls to the floor with a clunk and shatters into a hundred pieces. Fuck. The realisation he had managed to deny for so long now threatens to drown him. The fucking truth he had pushed down over and over again like one of those dumb pool floats he’d played with as a kid. Despite his desperate attempts to keep it down deep beneath the surface, it had re-surfaced violently. And he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He stares into the dark sanctuary of his hands, the pressure against his nose both sickening and somewhat grounding. Fucking Christ. He feels pathetic. Disgusting. Like a dog begging for scraps of something he doesn’t deserve. It’s all wrong. All  _ so _ wrong. 

He pries his fingers apart and exhales through the gaps. He can see the little broken pieces of ice are melting against the cheap motel tiles, spreading into little pools by his feet. 

God, how he wishes he could disappear too.

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> roadtripception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: researching New Mexico weather patterns from my garden in the UK.  
> Also me: I don't understand this I'm blaming any discrepancies on climate change.
> 
> hihihihi hope you're all staying safe!

_Cool, pale fingertips atop his throat, slip up to his chin, holding him in place._

_Then down._

_Down, down, down. Past his heart, skimming a rib, under his navel. To the waistband of his jeans. He thinks he hears his name. Breathed, no, licked into the skin beneath his earlobe. The divot behind his jaw. He’s shaking. Waiting. There’s a slip of cool plastic against hot, silken flesh and then..._

_And then..._

“Fuck.”

Gavin sits up violently, the sheets taut against his stomach, blood pounding in his brain as the night air dissipates into a fizzing darkness. TV static in his ears. Pulsing colours in his vision. Not a nightmare.

Definitely _not_ a nightmare. 

His breath comes in big gulps of dark air. Filling up his lungs like he’s parched and drowning all at once. He has his hands fisted in the sheets, the fabric damp from sweat, his knuckles white even in the strange half-light of the hotel room. The vacancy sign blinking red, black, red, black outside, bleeding into the rosy dawn. 

He casts a frantic glance to Nines’ bed and finds to his relief that the android is in stasis, blinking blue rings against the musty motel wallpaper. It’s a rare occasion to see him out of action, eyelids closed, LED a swirling wheel of blue as his system updates or whatever. 

Gavin flings the covers off his legs and hightails it to the bathroom. 

The clinical wash of white light makes him screw his eyes shut and he feels his way into the shower, kicking his underwear off as he does and nudging the door closed behind him with his foot. 

The shower runs cold and he yelps in shock, jumping backwards and hissing through his teeth. It’s probably a good thing, he thinks. Nothing like a freezing cold shower to kill your erection stone dead. 

He stretches and makes a grabby motion under the jet, turning his hand this way and that until the water heats up and he feels the first little bit of tension melt away in his fist. He ducks in, letting the fat water droplets race down his face, his shoulders, his spine. He exhales, sopping wet hair plastering his forehead, falling into his eyes. _Damn, he needs a haircut._

He presses his forehead to the tiles and resists the urge to bash his head repeatedly into the porcelain. 

_Fuck_. 

He stays like that until his forehead feels numb and he blindly feels for the motel’s complimentary shower gel. He steps back, drizzles a generous amount into his palm and begins rubbing it over his body. It smells like the first aftershave he ever wore around about seventh grade. Kinda earthy, kinda lemony, kinda gross. It soon puffs into a thick lather though and his aching muscles groan a little as he kneads it into his chest and down his abdomen. 

His fuzzy, not quite awake brain is trying really, really hard to drag him back to that dream, replacing his own hands with different ones. Hands without callouses but with long, pale fingers and neat, clean-cut nails that rake down the trail of hair below his navel. He finds himself breathless, flushed and drunk on the ghost of a touch that never actually existed. 

_Stop it._ Stop it right now. 

He wants to punch the tiles til his knuckles bleed. 

He wants to die. 

_He wants to kiss his fucking work partner on his dumb fucking mouth._

Every inch of his body wants to stay in the warm dream fantasy. To give into it. But he can’t.

He grits his teeth and turns the dial on the shower to freezing. He inhales sharply, his jaw clenched tight as the water turns icy and the soft, glow of sleep and the dream is washed from his body. 

He stands there, dripping wet and shivering, and the pit in his stomach opens up again. He presses his knuckles into his eyes so hard he sees stars. 

_This is fucked up even by your standards, Reed._

He groans softly, the knot of his own twisted feelings weighing heavily in his chest. If he can just grit his teeth and get through this trip, then he can kick up a fuss with Fowler when they get back. Make something up. Fuck it, he’ll even put in a transfer request if it comes to it. He’s not doing this. 

_He is not doing this._

But he knows that’s a lie. Nines would think it was his fault. His face swims in his vision, the little scowl, his lips parted in confusion. Even standing here, dripping wet and shivering, coming undone like a loose thread under the crushing realisation of the depths of his own pathetic loneliness, he knows he couldn’t do that to Nines. 

He sighs. Pushes his hair back so it’s slick against his head and chews his lower lip. He’s just going to have to bury it as far down as he can. It’ll be okay. He’s done it before. Fuck, he’s done it with everyone he’s ever cared about. Anyone that stuck around long enough to get close enough for him to feel it. That _tug_. The one that wraps itself around his ribs and pulls him in. That want to give into it all. To let someone get close. To be vulnerable. He can never do it. 

Countless exes had called him heartless for it. The truth is he’s just scared. Fucking terrified, to be exact. 

He gets out of the shower, soles of his feet burning against the icy tiles. He dries himself as best he can. He avoids the mirror. He doesn’t need a framed reminder of everything he is and everything he isn’t. And how badly this is going to end. 

* * *

  
  


“Bad news,” Gavin grumbles, words slurred around the tip of the unlit cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth. His nose is scrunched slightly in the way which makes the scarring there sit in a charming zig-zag shape as he stabs at his phone screen with his thumb. “We can’t review the evidence on this case ‘til Monday. Something about a database error in the archiving system? God- remind me why don’t people keep paper copies of anything anymore?”

Nines blinks, side-stepping out of the way as Gavin pushes past him, thumbs still jabbing out a response to the message on his phone. 

“Data protection laws,” Nines offers helpfully, but Gavin just grouses and chucks his phone onto the bed. 

“Right,” he sucks his teeth. “Whatever.”

There’s been a slight edge to Gavin’s behaviour this morning. There’s that bristling tension in the human’s stance, his shoulders taut and his gaze a little foggy. Nines thinks it might have something to do with his nightmare last night but he’s loathed to press it. He had taken care not to intervene again, choosing instead to remain in stasis, fighting against the urge that came with being alerted to a spike in Gavin’s vitals. 

“Does this mean we have no new cases to review?” Nines asks, watching the way Gavin half-throws himself on the bed with a heavy sigh. 

“It looks like it,” the human takes the cigarette out of his mouth and twirls it between his fingers idly. “Unless they contact us to say it’s fixed.”

“Well, if we have spare time,” Nines begins, picking at the stitching on the inside of his trouser pocket. He’d been dressed for work but now... “I have had a think about where I would like to go this weekend.” There’s a pause and Nines feels something like a swoop in his stomach at the realisation Gavin might have changed his mind about that. “As long as it is something that still appeals to you.”

He risks a glance up at Gavin who has sat back up, frowning a little at the android. 

“Well? You gonna tell me?”

“Yes,” Nines stands up as quickly as he can and crosses the room in a few long strides to his bedside drawer. He pulls the draw open and retrieves the little folded leaflet he took from the police station and holds it out to Gavin. 

“What’s this? Gavin puts the cigarette behind his ear and twists to take the paper. He unfolds it clumsily, smoothing it out as best he can between his hands. “You wanna go to _a forest?_ ” 

Nines nods in response, waiting for the derision he has learned to expect from the human. When it doesn’t come he licks his lips and tries again,

“It’s very different to anything I’ve ever seen before in person,” he sits down on the bed and Gavin flinches as Nines’ weight depresses the mattress next to him. Nines feels the flicker of something cold and uncomfortable prickle through the pathways in his abdomen at the movement. He recalculates the distance between them and shifts a few inches further away. He casts his eyes down to the paper in Gavin’s hands. “I think I would like it.”

Gavin sighs and folds the paper back up into the neat square Nines had made. He turns and retrieves his phone from where he’d thrown it and for a moment Nines thinks he might actually be about to say no. If he were human, he would probably hold his breath in anticipation. Instead, he just calculates the slope of Gavin’s nose, the slightly crooked bridge where it’s been broken a few times before, the blooming purple bruise now the swelling has gone down. He watches in fascination as Gavin squints, eyelashes too long for such a harsh face, eyes too tilted from this angle for Nines to see the pigmented rings and furrows of the irises he knows by heart. When he can’t wait any longer, his vision a-flood with prompts to ask Gavin _what he’s doing_ , he syncs with his phone and-

Oh. 

He’s looking up the route. 

“Nines, this is like a four-hour drive,” the human says on a heavy exhale. He clumsily punches in another route with his thumb and the journey time decreases by a mere ten minutes. “Jesus.”

“I could drive,” Nines suggests quickly, not quite able to tear his eyes away from the way the human scrunches his face in concentration, turning his phone around so the map auto-rotates to landscape. He makes a reverse pinching motion on the screen to zoom out.

He stares for a second longer before his eyes widen. 

“Oh hell yes,” he laughs and something warm flickers through Nines’ system at the noise. “Fuck it, if we’re gonna go to your special forest then we also get to make a stop in Roswell.”

Gavin turns to Nines, grinning, the creases around his eyes deepening. 

“Roswell?” Nines asks, unsure. His system prompts bring up an automatic list of helpful results. “The city?”

“Yep,” the human responds. “It’s like a half-hour detour.”

“Why?”

“Aliens.”

Nines blinks at Gavin, watching as he types something else into his phone. 

“Aliens?” Nines asks uncertain, scrolling through pages and pages on the Roswell UFO incident in his head. 

“Yep,” Gavin turns his phone so Nines can see the gaudy website for the UFO Museum and Research Centre. There’s a little banner at the bottom with a crude green imitation of an extraterrestrial and a bowl-shaped spaceship. Nines isn’t sure if this looks educational or just absurd. He can feel his facial algorithm warping as he tries to understand why Gavin would want to go to a place like this. 

“Hey” Gavin reaches up and runs the pad of his finger over Nines’ forehead, laughing breathlessly. “I’ve never seen you make that face before.”

Nines tries as hard as he can to set his features to neutral, despite the way his processors stutter at the brief contact. It feels like Gavin’s struck a match against his skin with the way the path of his finger seems to have left heat in its wake. A warmth that spreads across Nines’ face like spilt ink. 

“I-I don’t know if we will have time to do all this in one day, Gavin,” Nines manages to say. That’s the only helpful piece of information he can offer at this stage, his system encountering some kind of error that stalls any other operations and replaces them all with the need to analyse the surface texture of Gavin’s hands. His own hands flex automatically with the urge; he folds them into closed fists to prevent them from acting of their own accord. 

“Oh,” Gavin’s face falls a little, his gaze flickering to Nines’ hands then back to his phone. “Yeah...you’re probably right.”

Even Nines’ under-developed social module can pick up on the obvious flickers of disappointment that appear on Gavin’s face. The slight purse of the lips, the furrowed brow, the little sag of his shoulders. 

“We could stay over?” Nines offers as a solution. That would allow them enough time to do both activities with time for travel in between. And the idea of making it a two day event, where Gavin can do something he wants too, somehow makes it seem more important and less like Gavin is pandering to Nines. Yes, he would like it if Gavin had something to look forward to as well. That way he can convince himself a little easier that this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. 

“No.”

The answer comes too quickly and Nines notices the way Gavin’s gaze flickers up then just as quickly drops to the floor.

“Why not?” Nines asks. “We have just been given today off and it’s the weekend-”

“I dont...I don’t think we should,” Gavin says, his eyes trained on his shoes. He locks his phone so the website zips away into the blackness of his screen. His heart rate has risen inexplicably, the little holographic prompt pulsing in Nines’ vision, but he can’t understand why. He runs through a series of solutions on how to salvage this situation; he’s so desperate for this to go well, for Gavin to agree to this trip that suddenly it doesn’t matter where they go or what they do. He picks the one with the highest success rate based on his gathered data. 

“Okay, well,” Nines watches Gavin’s reaction carefully. “We could just go to the museum then.”

“What?” Gavin frowns up at Nines. 

“The museum. The UFO museum.”

“No,” the human shakes his head. “You said you wanted to go to the forest.”

“But if we can only do one,” Nines says twisting away from the stormy gaze feeling suddenly uncomfortable, the sensors on his skin prickling. He wonders if there is a similar reason as to why Gavin so rarely looks him in the eye. “I would rather do something that you will enjoy.”

Gavin drags his hand down his face and Nines wonders why he’s fighting this _so_ hard. Perhaps, it’s too much, spending all that time together and that’s why he’d rather just do one thing. He supposes that they do spend an awful lot of time together and he probably wants some time away alone. The thought hits Nines hard and he shifts uncomfortably on the bed, suddenly feeling foolish.

Gavin exhales heavily and slowly drags his gaze up to meet Nines, it’s tentative, like he’s fighting his own system errors and processor lag. Whatever the Gavin version of those things are. He’s chewing on his lip a little and Nines is surprised he doesn’t bite right through the soft flesh. It’s the tiny swipe of his tongue at the corner of his mouth that has him once again feeling that strange tightness in his chest, like he can’t breathe, which is impossible and slightly concerning. 

Perhaps he should file an error report. 

“Fuck it,” Gavin says quietly, drawing Nines right back to him. “Right. We drive to your forest today-” he picks up the little leaflet, waves it a little as if for emphasis, then sticks the paper between his teeth so he can use both hands to bring up the map again. He continues through gritted teeth- “go for a walk or whatever it is you want to do there. Find a shitty motel for the night. _Tomorrow-”_ he throws his phone down on the bed and retrieves the leaflet from his mouth- _“_ we go to Roswell.”

There’s a strange silence in Nines’ head as the tightness in his chest seems to envelop his whole body, til he’s thrumming with some kind of prickly static, to the point it takes all his processing power to remain still.  
  


“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Nines, I’m sure,” Gavin says sarcastically like it’s the stupidest question he’s ever heard and his mouth pulls into that crooked half-smirk he does when he’s trying not to smile. 

Nines fights through the strange wall of software errors he feels to put forward his best attempt at a smile so far. He hopes it looks sincere. Gavin retrieves the cigarette from behind his ear and sticks it between his teeth to stifle a bubble of laughter, ducking his head.

* * *

Gavin adjusts the collar on his last clean t-shirt. God, why the fuck didn’t he pack more clothes? At least he doesn’t have to wear a tie today, he thinks. He tugs the fabric across his chest and turns this way, then that. Fuck, he’s already got shitty tan lines. 

A selfish part of him is secretly thrilled at the opportunity to spend time away from work with Nines. His stomach swoops at the memory of the sincere way he had handed Gavin the leaflet. Like it was something secret and precious. 

The other part of him is terrified because isn’t this exactly the opposite of what he decided to do not two hours earlier? When it comes to impulse control, he really does take the piss. 

He stares at his face in the mirror, the first time he’s allowed himself to do it today. He looks like shit. The bruise from yesterday’s shenanigans is flourishing across his skin in tender spider-webs, like some kind of fucked-up nebula all purple, pink and blue. His left eye looks a little puffy still, he prods it with his finger and flinches. Yep, hurts like a bitch. 

He sighs and pushes his way out of the bathroom. 

He goes to turn to move across the room and walks straight into the solid wall that is Nines’ back, as the android stands in the narrow walk-way at the end of their beds, staring intently at his reflection in the floor length mirror. Gavin yelps, a sound of surprise that morphs into a half-scream when he realises what Nines is actually _doing_.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Gavin hisses, snatching the scissors out of Nines’ hands. 

The android looks at him for a long moment, eyes wider than usual, before he lowers the empty hand that had been poised at his temple. Shit, if Gavin had walked into him with any more force he might have impaled his eye like a martini olive.

"I'm taking out my LED,” he answers like it’s a completely normal thing to slice your skin open at 8am in the morning. 

"Why?!"

"I thought it might be better while we are in New Mexico giving the attention I have been getting thus far,” he states matter-of-factly. 

"That's a pretty permanent decision to be making on account of a few assholes…Jesus, Nines.” Gavin exhales heavily, the scissors clutched so tightly in his hands that the metal bites into the soft flesh of his palm. He looks up at Nines, jaw set in something close to frustration when- “Wait...is that... _is this your new look_?"

In the shock of finding Nines in the middle of what looked like a DIY lobotomy, he had failed to take in what the android was currently wearing. He’s sporting a pair of black jeans and a pretty jazzy shirt. It completely knocks him for six. 

The jeans are normal enough, Gavin tries not to dwell too much on the fact they’re practically spray-on denim, it’s the shirt that’s giving him an aneurysm really. Nines has the buttons done upright to the top, the sleeves folded meticulously to his forearms and the bottom tucked tightly into the waistband of his jeans. He looks like a strange cross between a Sunday school teacher and a kid on his first day of school, especially when he tucks his hands behind him expectantly. It shouldn’t be so endearing. 

"Do you like it?" Nines looks at him expectantly, lips parted as he holds in a breath of anticipation he doesn’t even need. 

Gavin covers his mouth as his lips spread into a grin and feels immediately shitty as he pinpoints the exact flicker of movement that constitutes Nines’ face falling. 

"You don't like it," Nines states. Then he turns quickly to the mirror, staring at himself in the reflection with that little scowl. "What did I get wrong?"

"You didn't get anything wrong...it's just...come here," Gavin steps towards Nines, throwing the scissors across the room where they land on the bed with a spring. He tries not to think about their proximity as he undoes the top few buttons on his shirt. It's a pretty shirt really- very Nines- a deep blue with gold detailing. It makes his eyes look a little different; like the colour of the ocean that Gavin can only vaguely remember from childhood postcards. He gets to the middle of his chest, fingers curled against the strange artificial heat of Nines’ body, and suddenly feels stupid. "You can do the rest." He plucks at another button half-heartedly before letting the pads of his fingers ghost down the rest of the shirt to where Nines has it tucked into the waistband of his jeans. "And don't do that." He gestures generally to Nines' pelvic region. 

"Do what?"

"Tucking it in like... _here_..." Gavin holds his breath and pulls the shirt out from where Nines has neatly tucked it in. He's wearing a dark undershirt and there's barely a second of hipbone on show but it somehow seems too intimate. Worse still as his knuckles graze against that strange, soft heat. 

Nines stares down at Gavin for a heartbeat, the tiniest flicker of gold at his temple, then sets about undoing the rest of his buttons. He lets the shirt fall open, running the flat of his palms over his abdomen, then turning to look at his reflection in the mirror again. He lets his fingers skirt the edge of the shirt and then the cuffed edges of the short sleeves. A little tug on the stiff collar so it sits comfortably and a tiny dart of his tongue out to his lower lip in concentration, laying everything down flat and crease-free. 

Gavin just stares. Seeing Nines like that is equal parts terrifying and amazing. He looks almost human. He’s right that the only give-away would be the LED flickering at his temple. He wants to run his fingers through those neatly combed curls and mess him up a bit. Maybe put some dirt on his jeans or some scuffs on the pristine box-fresh trainers. But something truly aches in his chest when the android turns around to look at Gavin with that squinty attempt at a smile again. Cyberlife really did a number on Nines when they removed the freedom of the RK800 facial expressions programming. But they somehow left the dimples. He finds himself wanting to poke his fingers in the little divots in his cheeks.

"Is this good?"

"Yeah it's…” Gavin manages to choke out. “It's good."

Nines turns back to the mirror, seemingly satisfied with himself. 

“Good,” Nines repeats softly, fingers flexing against the loose fabric of his shirt, and Gavin has to look away. 

* * *

  
  


Nines frowns as the results of his latest error report flash into his vision, detailing the changes and anomalies in his own recent behaviour. _Instabilities_ , for lack of a better word. Although now he’s deviant, his code doesn’t necessarily work the same way as it once did. 

He didn’t really need the report to tell him that. He’s more than aware of the changes. He notices them every so often, the ones that he can catch. 

For one, he’s fidgeting. A thing he loathed in his predecessor. He used to sneer at the way RK800 would worry the threads of his sleeves or roll that infernal coin across his knuckles. Now he finds himself chewing on the flesh of his lower lip or toeing the floor with his shoes. Involuntary movements. Habits. He realises even now, sat in the passenger seat of their rental car, he’s rubbing the skin of his artificial knuckle-joint with his thumb, soothing the pseudo-skin in and out of existence so white bleeds into peach and back into white again. 

He stops, thumb paused mid-stroke, and lets out a little unnecessary breath of frustration. He turns instead to the driver’s seat where Gavin has his wrist draped over the steering wheel, tapping out the rhythm of the song on the radio on his thigh with his other hand. 

One of Nines’ more intrusive habits takes over then, without him even realising. His penchant to over analyze his partner’s habits too. The way he taps his fingers on the rim of his coffee cup when he’s thinking. How he scrubs at his face when he’s frustrated. The curvature of his spine and the shoulder slump when it’s late and he’s tired. Useless information. All filed away in his ‘Gavin folder’ which now takes up over 76% of his recorded memory usage. 

He’s doing it now- tapping his fingers along the edge of the steering wheel subconsciously and still drumming out an off-beat rhythm on his thigh. Nines follows his vacant line of sight, down the road towards the horizon that shimmers in the mid-morning heat, in a way which makes the sparse trees in the distance look strange and dream-like. 

Nines is excited to see the green trees. The real ones. Not the ones dancing in the distance like a mirage.

Although the landscape of New Mexico is appealingly different to that of Detroit, there’s something lush and beautiful about the emerald trees on the glossy paper that make his fingers itch to touch them. He’s been looking at images and videos too of course, playing them over in his mind, but he’s certain it can’t compare to the real thing. He gets a strange fluttery sensation in his stomach and realises suddenly that this must be what excitement feels like. The feeling swirls through him like a static charge, not an entirely alien feeling but, somehow more pleasant than he’s used to. 

He sinks back into the leather of the seat and brings up the to-do list he’s prepared for their trip. Item one is already ticked off: get Gavin breakfast. His gaze flickers to the scrunched up wrapper from the human’s breakfast sandwich and the polystyrene coffee cup rattling in the drinks holder. Check. Time for item two. 

“What’s your favourite colour?” Nines asks, thumbing the edge of the leaflet in his lap. 

Gavin huffs, still awkwardly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat.

“Green,” he says eventually, “Why?”

How apt, Nines thinks, tracing the small length of a pine tree in the picture at the bottom. He sighs, wishing they could be there already. 

“I read that on long car journeys-” Nines says, folding the leaflet in half and then in half again, so he can stow it in the pocket of his jeans- “you should get to know one another better.”  
  


“Is that so?” Gavin laughs a little from the driver’s seat. 

“The other option was to play a game but I didn’t think you would want to,” Nines says sighing a little in faux disappointment. 

“You got that right,” Gavin says quietly but loud enough that Nines picks up on it and can’t help the way the corner of his mouth curls at the detective’s grumpiness. 

He thinks about what he would like to know about Gavin. A hundred and one different questions flood to the front of his brain, and he has to sift through the myriad of intense and altogether inappropriate ones he wishes he could ask, for some that might not result in Gavin crashing the car. 

“Favourite film?” Nines asks. 

“Sharknado 26,” Gavin answers in a heartbeat.  
  


“ _What_?” 

Nines feels his nose scrunching a little as his automatic internet search pulls up the plot summary. _Sharks, tectonic plates..._  
  


“You asked,” Gavin shrugs, a grin playing around his lips. 

“What do you like to do in your spare time?”

“Wallow in self pity.”

Nines raises his eyebrows at the human but Gavin doesn’t return his gaze so he settles back into his seat again, thinking of what else he should ask. He watches the clumps of sagebrush pass by his window for a while, watching the dust dance in whirls as the car picks up speed. Enough time passes that Gavin starts singing along to a new song that floats through the sticky air from the radio. It’s a very un-Gavin song but listening to him sing along tunelessly, drumming his fingers off-beat against the steering wheel while the dust and wind from the road blow by, is strangely pleasant. Nines runs a search of the song, wondering if it’s a favourite of his, and realises it’s a love song from 1966. A lifetime ago. Gavin’s parents were likely not even born. He wonders why he knows all the words. 

_“Baby, then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do, we could be married and then we'd be happy…”_ Gavin murmurs, not even close to the right melody. 

The lyrics resonate in his mind, Gavin’s tuneless drawl and the singer’s overlaid atop each other, and something strange twists in the space behind his sternum.

“Have you ever been married?” Nines asks before he can filter it into something more delicate. 

He watches Gavin visibly tense in the driver’s seat, his gaze suddenly very focused on the road ahead, as he licks his lips.

“What?” He asks after a breath, his eyebrows flickering up in a weird kind of disbelief. 

“Have you ever-”  
  


“I heard what you said,” Gavin shakes his head. “I was just...no, why?”

“It’s just…” Nines begins but he’s stepping into dangerous territory if Gavin’s face is anything to go by. He recalculates his approach and casts his eyes to the floor of the car where his feet are clad in their new shoes. “Do you... want to?”

It’s a loaded question and Nines knows that. Gavin is above the average age for men in this country to get married. He’s listed as single on the DPD staff database. He’s never mentioned a partner, past or current. Nines knows all of this. 

And yet he still asks. 

“No.” Gavin answers a little too quickly. His pulse has risen considerably in the past ten seconds, the little marker blinking in Nines’ HUD. He shifts his weight in his seat before adding, “I...err...it’s not for me.”

“Why not?” Nines asks immediately and is once again filled with an instant feeling of regret at his loss of impulse control. He finds it seems to suffer around Gavin more and more as time passes. 

“Fuckin’ inquisitive today, aren’t you?” Gavin huffs, flexing his fingers against the steering wheel. Nines notices his eyes dart to the passenger seat before fixing back on the horizon again. He licks his lips, swallows then lets out a heavy exhale. “I don’t know, Nines. Look at me, I’m pushing forty, smoke like a chimney, got a drinkin’ habit to rival Anderson’s…” He starts counting every quality on his left hand, lifting a finger off the steering wheel each time. “I’m an asshole, I don’t like people, I don’t like kids...I work every hour I can get and go home alone to my cat and my shitty ass empty apartment.” He blows out a breath at the end of his list, jaw set, gaze still fixed ahead before he adds quietly, “I’m hardly ‘catch of the fuckin’ day.’” 

The admission leaves a ringing silence in the car, punctuated only by the steady rumbling of the car engine and Gavin’s stilted breaths. Nines runs through Gavin’s list of perceived negative qualities in his mind. He agrees with all of them. And yet he doesn’t quite understand how this validates his marital status. 

Nines folds his hands in his lap, thinking carefully about his response.

“So,” he begins slowly. “If you could find someone who liked you for you, who didn’t mind that you worked so much, and who...liked cats…”

“It’s not so much finding someone as them not _leaving_ ,” Gavin says in an almost pained tone, dragging one hand down his face. A bad sign. Nines should probably stop pushing this line of conversation but he can’t quite help but want to scratch the itch it’s created in his brain.

“Why would they leave?” Nines asks quietly. 

“Shit, Nines... _everyone_ leaves,” Gavin’s grip on the steering wheel is vice-like. “I drive people away, okay? It’s what I do.”

“You haven’t managed to drive me away yet,” Nines points out. 

Gavin lets out a pained little laugh and shakes his head. 

“Yeah but I’m pretty sure you’re insane so you don’t count.”

_You don’t count._

Nines nods. 

“I see.”

There’s a pause.

“What about you?” Gavin asks, in a way which on the surface sounds flippant, but Nines watches his heart skip a beat in real time on the hologram in his HUD. Strange. 

“Androids can’t get married,” Nines says flatly. It’s not something he’s given particular thought to. The idea of marriage seems quite redundant if you ask him. Although, he can see the... _sentimental_ value it might hold for some. 

“Not yet,” Gavin replies. “You might want to... y’know if you met the right person.”

Nines turns to look at Gavin again, watching as the human chews on his lower lip. This is a notion Nines has read about a lot. The _right_ person. It’s something that’s caused him infinite glitches and system patches trying to work out, suspending his own disbelief and limited range of emotions, to even begin to scrape the surface. The human notion of true love, soulmates, romance...the whole thing seems so optimistically wonderful and yet so utterly unattainable and unrealistic. And yet somehow, deep down buried beneath all the flawed logic, negative statistics and questionable odds, he hopes it might be still true.

“How would I know?”

“What?” Gavin scrunches his face up as if pained by the question. As though he hasn’t just offered the idea out himself. 

“If I met the right person?” Nines finds his right hand picking at a crack in the leather seat impatiently and has to manually shut down the movement in order to stop. He slowly sets his palm down flat against his thigh. “How would I _know_?”

“Jeez, Nines,” Gavin says exasperatedly. “I don’t know, you’re asking the wrong person here.” Gavin’s shoulders sag and he looks like he might be about to hit his head against the steering wheel but he looks up at the last minute, eyes fixed once more on the horizon. “Why, you err...you met someone?”

Nines looks away as Gavin catches his eye. He stares instead at the cotton canvas of his new shoes again. 

_Has he?_

It’s something he’s been wondering about himself...in all the time spent not-in-stasis staring into the darkness of their twin room, carefully tuned into the gentle cadence of his partner’s breathing. But how could he ever know?

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. The truth is so much more complicated than he could ever- _should_ ever- say out loud. 

Gavin must sense the weight of the statement because he shuffles uncomfortably in his seat, sucking his teeth. He flexes his hands against the steering wheel and huffs out a sharp little breath. 

“Seeing as we’re rolling with the awkward conversations,” Gavin says after a brief moment of silence, his tone verging on irritability. “You wanna tell me why you suddenly decided to gouge your nightlight out this morning?”

There’s a moment where Nines’ system glitches and stutters as he processes the words. A hundred different responses flicker into his field of vision, each one a little stranger. He opens his mouth but then shuts it almost immediately. He knows why. But he doesn’t want to explain. 

“I already told you,” he says finally.

Gavin scrunches his nose at the response, unconvinced. 

“Since when do you give a shit what people think, Nines.”

“I never said I care what people think of me,” Nines says quickly. That’s not what he meant either. He doesn’t care what _people_ think of him. Not strangers. It wouldn’t even matter if it weren’t that his LED seems to act as a metaphorical cross-hair. It makes him a target. And by association: Gavin.  
  


“Why else would you take it out?” Gavin pushes, seemingly dissatisfied with Nines’ explanation. 

Nines feels a prickle of what can only be anger, a strange lick of something hot up his vertebrae, at Gavin’s obliviousness. 

“ _Perhaps to prevent people from inciting conflict with us outside a grocery store?”_ Nines growls and it comes out louder than he meant it and laced with static that makes Gavin flinch a little. 

“You shouldn’t have to-”  
  


“I wasn’t doing it for _me_ , Gavin!” Nines snaps. 

The realisation dawns slowly on Gavin’s face and his face softens ever so slightly but his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. 

“You don’t need to mutilate your face for me,” Gavin says slowly, as if every word were a separate sentence in itself. 

Nines feels his eyes roll back into his head at the situation- an entirely new impulse- and feels his system lag at the new software instability in his ocular units. The fact that Gavin can’t see how the attack was _Nines’ fault_ , that the removal of his LED would prevent any future events like this, that Nines just wants to _protect_ him, to do the only caring thing he can do within the confines of his core programming. 

“It’s synth skin,” Nines starts to say. “It heals over-”

There’s a blaring noise that has Nines’ ocular implants drop out altogether, the world gone deathly silent for a moment, as Gavin swerves the car without warning off the road. Then there’s the groan of the engine and the squeal of brakes as Gavin pulls up sharp, a cloud of red dust engulfing the windscreen. A big rig roars past, the sheer force of it rattling the windows and Nines suddenly understands where the blaring noise came from. The driver shouts something obscene at them but it’s lost in the slowly dissipating plume of dust. Nines notes a background process suddenly activates, collecting this precious data on Gavin’s tendency to be _unpredictable_ , even now as his knuckle joints are locked in tight fists on his thighs and his thirium pump is beating like a jackhammer. 

“Hey,” Gavin twists in his seat, to jab a finger accusingly at Nines. “Don’t give me that. S’not the point.” He’s scowling, punctuating his point with a stab at the air everytime Nines goes to interrupt with a counter argument. “I got into plenty of fights before you came along. I’m very capable of getting myself out of them too. I don’t need _you_ to protect me.” He sinks back into his seat a little, both hands resting onto the steering wheel again as he sighs exasperatedly. “Or…. mess up your face for me.”

Nines opens his mouth to retort with a list of statistics of android attacks in Detroit and the correlation between victims that had removed their LED and those that had not but he stops when he sees the pulse of tension in Gavin’s jaw that says he’s really touched a nerve. He lets out a little huff and feels the mechanism in his jaw lock in a similar flicker of frustration. He takes a deep, unnecessary breath, as though to steady himself and it works to soothe the prickly feeling of anger flooding his pathways. 

“I have struggled with the concept of emotion and human connection since my awakening,” Nines says carefully, monitoring the judder of Gavin’s heartbeat and the gentle heaving of his chest. “I don’t know or understand how relationships form but from what I understand from friendship, it is a bond created on mutual trust.” Gavin’s gaze flickers to Nines for a microsecond then back to the road ahead, the dust having swept away, the horizon still shimmering with heat. “Friends do things for each other. They _care_ for each other. I was not programmed with ‘care’ in mind. I don’t know what I can do for you in this friendship if I cannot at least protect you.” 

Gavin scrunches his face up at that, his internal temperature rising, whether from the lack of breeze or the conflict. 

“Fuck, Nines,” he groans in response. “I don’t need you to _do_ anything.”

“But I want to.”

“Just...just be you,” Gavin pushes his hair back and presses his lips together. “Be you and don’t say shit like that again.”

“Like what?” Nines asks, cocking his head slightly at the response.

“Like you’re referencing an episode of Spongebob,” Gavin huffs out a nervous laugh and continues to rake his fingers through his hair. 

Nines purses his lips at the strange reference, immediately looking it up and then scowling, confused at how he, or his sincerity, could ever be compared to an absurd yellow sea sponge. But he sits back in his seat, for now satisfied, that Gavin doesn’t find his presence as irksome as he once thought, as the human exhales heavily and pulls out into the road once more. 

* * *

They arrive in good enough time. Great time really, considering that Gavin had almost crashed the car at the shit coming out of Nines’ mouth. Fuck, that android is going to be the death of him- quite literally. 

They pull up, by unfortunate chance, at one of the busier entrances to the forest that’s been commercialised to shit in the more recent years. There’s a weird ranger-hut-gift-shop designed to dupe tourists out of their money in order to fund the conservation of the forest. All that seems to be dwindling thanks to urbanisation and climate change according to the big information boards up around the shop. Nines fingers the soft fur of a Smoky The Bear keyring with fascination and Gavin pulls a face and smacks it out of his hands. 

“Please don’t buy any of this shit,” Gavin grumbles as the android looks at him with a little scowl. 

“ _You_ should think about purchasing some of the t-shirts,” Nines plucks at the cotton of Gavin’s shirt irritably. “I believe this is your last clean one.”

“How the fuck would you know?”

“Because you refused to unpack your case for the first two days and just left it open on my bed,” Nines says deadpan. “I became quite familiar with the contents.”

Gavin feels his face heat up even though he’s not particularly bothered about Nines seeing his clothes and shit. 

“What are you? My mother?” he grouses. But he’s right. 

He pulls three of the least offensive designs off the rack and Nines does one of his brand new facial expressions- one that can only be described as _smug_. 

Once they’ve made it through the gift shop, stashed the t-shirts in the car, and Nines has succeeded in convincing Gavin to wear sun cream, they head out into the forest. 

It is nice actually, Gavin thinks, after they’ve been walking for a while. The dappled shade of the pine trees cast interesting shadows along the forest floor; it’s cooler here, not by much, but it’s something. He might not sunburn his nose today. It’s muggier, rather than the clean, hot heat of the desert roads. It’s still dusty as fuck but it’s nice to see the spruce needles littering the floor, hear the satisfying snap and the subsequent scuffling avalanches they create underfoot. Gavin doesn’t think that Nines’ LED has stopped circling in the entire time they’ve been under the canopy. He’s obviously having the time of his life, not that you’d be able to tell as an outsider from his completely neutral expression. But Gavin has noticed the tiny flickers of joy in the corner of his mouth and the widening of his eyes as he runs the pads of his fingertips over every tree they walk past. 

He has trailed one step behind since the first fifteen minutes of his feigned enthusiasm wore off unable to keep pace with the android as they walk on a steady incline. Now he’s just trying not to stare at the way Nines’ looks in those fucking jeans. 

“Hey, tin-can?” Gavin calls. Nines stops and looks over his shoulder. It’s unfair how the sunlight hits his face through the leaves. It’s like a stained glass window and Gavin feels his chest tighten. “Some of us still need to breathe.”

Nines will never know just how relevant that statement is, Gavin thinks, rubbing at his sternum as if he can massage the feeling away like it’s indigestion. 

Or heartburn _._ Ironic.

“I’m sorry,” Nines answers, his voice strangely full of sincerity. He turns his body fully to face him, hands cradled awkwardly in front of him. “Do you want to stop?”

“Gimme like five minutes,” Gavin grumbles, stretching so his shoulders audibly click. He could definitely do with a sit-down. 

He flops down to the forest floor, a movement that sends another tsunami of spruce needles skittering away from him. He sighs and lies down, resting his head on his forearm, staring up at the flickering waves of the canopy above him. Gavin can appreciate why Nines would like it, when all you know is the glittery towers of Detroit city, the quiet and calm of the forest is probably preferable. He’s never been one for the country, really, but he can see the appeal. There’s something very calming about the lilting breath of the wind in the trees and in his hair and against his skin. He stays like that for way more than five minutes, drifting into a soft, light sleep, his body heavy with the weight of fatigue and the overwhelming feeling of calm he finds just from lying in the dirt. 

When he awakes he scrunches his eyes against the shifting light peeking through the branches and rolls onto his side to look for Nines. 

He’s sat cross-legend a few feet away, with his wrists draped over his knees, spine still impeccably straight. He has his eyes closed, artificially long eyelashes dusting his cheeks as his eyes flicker behind his eyelids- no doubt chasing the coding of some error report. There’s a smattering of opaque seed pods and spruce needles that have come to rest in his hair and a faint smudge of dirt, dry and powdery across his cheek. It suits him. Gavin lets himself stare. Too tired from the walk and the heat to bring himself to care too much why. No one to judge him here but the trees.

He thinks about the android’s admission in the car. _I don’t know what I can do for you._ The sincerity of it all hits him square in the chest again and he grimaces from the sheer weight of it. No one had ever said anything like that before. Or that they wanted to protect him. No, a lot of his exes had said stuff out of some stupid macho obligation. But not like this. Not out of genuine care. 

And Gavin didn’t deserve that. Of course he didn’t. Not only because he had been awful to Nines from the beginning but also now, when Nines so earnestly offered him his friendship, he was twisting it into...into this. 

He thinks about Nines sat beside him in the car, asking when he’d know if he met the right person, fingers picking the leather seat apart in the most whole-hearted show of human nervousness he’d ever seen. Who on earth could make him look like that? God, _the idea_ of Nines with someone romantically. 

He tries not to dwell on the word he’s purposefully omitting. Someone _else_. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs, running his hand down his face as if he can wipe that thought right out of his head. There’s the smell of ozone thick in his lungs and a building pressure in his head that makes him feel dizzy, a restlessness in the air that prickles his skin and hot-wires his brain like a migraine. The forest seems to be itching with anticipative energy, the taste of metal and stars on his tongue, like it’s reflecting his own emotions and the nausea he feels in his gut. He takes a few hot, syrupy gulps of air in his lungs and tastes every breath on his tongue. 

“We should head back,” Nines says suddenly. Gavin hadn’t even noticed him wake up let alone get to his feet. He’s stood solemnly, staring up at the sky, which even now seems to be changing in colour. 

“Why?” Gavin asks, like he hasn’t just had the breath knocked from his lungs. 

“It’s going to rain.”

They power walk, for about fifteen minutes, Gavin stopping every so often to gasp because he refuses to ask Nines to slow down. 

The rain starts when they’re about five minutes away from the car. Little pinpricks against his skin at first and then all-of-a-sudden like someone’s twisted the faucet to max. Gavin breaks into a sprint to catch up with Nines who stopped dancing back to run with Gavin after he shouted at him the first time for patronising him. His mouth fills with rain water as he casts his eyes up to the sky and wonders if he can inhale enough water to drown himself before they get back to the car and he has to face this. 

He laughs at the thought, despite it all, but chokes on the noise as he nearly falls headlong down a steep, slippery hill. Nines is waiting for him at the bottom by the car, in the centre of a puddle of muddy water. He groans and starts to take slippery steps down the slope, one after the other, until he’s half-running with momentum and he’s certain he’s going to crash straight into the android. 

At the very last moment, his right foot betrays him, slipping on a wet leaf and he feels his whole world turn sideways. Nines catches him by the forearm, wrenching him back up into a standing position until they’re dangerously close and he barks out a laugh, eyes screwed shut, as the adrenaline from the fall hits him in the gut. He waits a second, eyes still resolutely closed in pain and embarrassment and _dread_ because he doesn’t want to look him in the eye. 

_Come on, get it together, Reed._

His eyes make the agonising journey from the ground up. Nines is soaked, new shoes, his ankles and the turn-ups of his jeans, dark with mud. There’s something about the way the rain rests on his skin, different to how it would sit on a human, like great wet jewels, running off his chin. And that neat swirl of a curl stuck to his forehead, shiny and dark like an oil slick. When he smiles at Gavin through the thin sheets of rain that separate them, there’s a tiny flash of teeth there’s never been before, the smile wider. It should be predatory- _isn’t that what he’s designed to be?_ \- but it’s not. There’s no need for Nines to be smiling at Gavin like that.

“Careful,” Nines says quietly, his grip loosening a little on Gavin’s arm as the human steadies himself on the squelchy ground. 

There’s a moment that stretches between them then, as viscous as the mud rushing around his ankles, where Gavin just stares at the black, wet, spikes of his eyelashes stuck together and heavy with the weight of raindrops. He licks his lips, tasting the copper tang of rain water on his tongue, heart hammering as Nines’ eyes chase the movement. 

Then Gavin pushes past him, slipping a little on the slick muddy ground, staggering until he hits the side of the car, palms hitting hard against the wet metal. He lets himself in, hands fumbling until he sinks into the leather of the driver’s seat, sick with the feeling of his heart racing. It’s from the running, he tells himself. It’s just from the running. 

A door opens and with it comes the roar of the rain. Nines clambers into the passenger seat, black jeans wet and shiny, both his shirts sodden, clinging to the hard plains of his chest and abdomen. Gavin just stares as Nines lets out a little huff of a laugh. A _laugh_ . Lips quirked, another flash of sharp canines, and the shaky heave of his chest that’s all for show. But it looks real. Warm breath, with moisture and heat. He’s never done that before. _Ever_. Hell, it looks good on him. There’s that feeling of warmth and hunger, in Gavin’s chest and in his gut, and he doesn’t notice that he’s still staring until Nines tilts his head under his gaze. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Nines asks, his voice barely audible over the rain hammering on the windscreen. The fat drops swelling and bursting on impact; the windows fogging over from the heat. 

_He knows_ , Gavin thinks. 

No, he doesn’t know. He can’t know. How could he? What could an android know of-

Of _what_?

Gavin doesn’t answer, neither Nines nor the accusatory voice in his own head, just turns the key in the ignition. He feels the nervous, jittery energy thrumming through his body as his hands shake against the metal of the keys and against the steering wheel as he reverses wildly backwards through a puddle. 

He leans forward against the steering wheel, looking up at the rearview mirror, his own eyes flooded black staring back at him. 

_Fucking hell._

“We should find somewhere to stay,” Nines says, his voice lilting over from the passenger seat, breaking through the wall of static that’s screwing with Gavin’s brain. He finds himself nodding, despite the stupor. _God, why did he agree to this?_

The drive to the nearest town is quiet as the rain slows to a stop, and Gavin can speed a little through pools of molten gold where the sunset hits the saturated road. He winds the windows down just to break the silence with the roar of the wind. As they pull into the quieter roads of the little town, he hears the wet tarmac sizzle in the dying light of the sun, the pressure broken, the air clean in his lungs. It’s grounding; his dizzying head coming to a standstill, emerging from the haze, where he can think clearly once more. 

They find a motel that’s got vacancies, the sign blinking weakly in the dusk like a lighthouse in a storm. Their twin room is much the same as every other they’ve been in. But somehow, despite the dimensions being the same, this one feels smaller. Cramped. Claustrophobic. Nines must feel it too, because he keeps his distance, going into an early stasis, with not so much as a goodnight. 

Gavin stands and stares at his serene profile in the half-light for longer than he probably should, watching the gentle cycles of his LED pulse rings against the tired wallpaper patterns. 

He spends the rest of the evening perched on a damp sun lounger besides the pool, staring at the leaves that slowly float across the surface, propelled along by the undertow from the pool filter. He practically chews the ends off half a pack of cigarettes and by the time it’s well and truly dark outside, the sky and inky black and peppered with stars, his chest feels tight and crackly from too much smoke. 

* * *

  
  


Gavin awakes again, gasping, hands scrabbling for purchase in the stiff sheets, and Nines forgets he’s supposed to pretend he’s not awake. 

He’s crossed the room in seconds, hands gripping the human’s shoulders tightly, shaking him until Gavin’s eyes stop being so unfocused and the tension leaves his body as he sags in his arms. He’s trembling, his whole body wracked with the aftermath of his dream, his nails digging so tightly into Nines’ arms that his skin retracts, and a warning pops up in his vision regarding epidermal trauma. He swipes it away.

Nines lowers himself and Gavin down to the bed as carefully as he can searching for some way to help. His system trips over itself to bring up helpful articles. There are a lot of buzzwords. _Empathy. Re-focus. Soothe._ He’s not sure he can do any of those effectively. He cycles through another hundred articles and picks out the most popular responses. 

Check under the bed for monsters? Not appropriate.

Sing a lullaby? He could project a recording of one, he supposes, but Gavin has expressed discomfort when Nines has done that before. _Creepy_ , he called it. He swipes past that suggestion. 

Physical affection? Nines pauses as Gavin takes great heaving gulps of air in his arms. He’s avoided almost all physical contact with Gavin where possible because he has continuously shown signs of aversion to touch. But he’s already broken that rule, he thinks, looking down to where the human is half laid across his body. 

Nines settles down into a sitting position on the mattress and the human sort of slumps down with him, the weight of his own body and his exhaustion too much. Nines doesn’t say anything nor does he try to move him, he just slots his arm around his middle to hold him up a little. Gavin’s body goes tense at that.

“Should leave me alone,” he whispers, his head lolling from exhaustion.

“Is that what you want?” Nines mumbles, turning his face down to look at where the human has slumped against his chest, speaking instead into the crown of his head. His hair is surprisingly soft, Nines’ registers, the sensors on his face prickling to life at the tiny contact. His fingers itch to sink into it, to feel it against the sensitive pads of his fingertips. 

Gavin lets out another weak grumble but then sighs and shakes his head. 

His grip on Nines’ arm relaxes a little and he slides ever further down Nines’ body til he’s almost lying back in the bed, his head leaning slightly against Nines’ thigh. Nines’ stares down at him, bathed in the light of his LED which flickers blue through yellow every time Gavin shifts against him. His breathing is starting to even out and his heart rate is slowly easing back to normal. 

Some of the articles suggest talking through the nightmares but Nines is pretty certain Gavin’s in no fit state for that. Instead, he just lets the human’s breathing even out again, his heart rate finally returning to normal. Nines relishes the pleasant heat of Gavin’s body and the little twitches in his face that say he’s slipping into another sleep. 

He knows he should move. That Gavin is only consenting to this because he’s exhausted. He shifts a little so Gavin’s head lols back onto the mattress and shifts away, instantly missing the sleepy warmth as it dissipates. He braces himself on the mattress and goes to get up but a hand, vice-like, on his knee stops him and Gavin murmurs something into the sheets that not even Nines’ auditory processors can pick up.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said,” Gavin huffs, turning his face so his mouth is no longer obscured by fabric. “Can you wait ‘til I fall asleep. Y’know incase...” He trails off but his grip tightens ever so slightly against his knee. Nines blinks unnecessarily in the darkness. His gaze travels across his form, and he looks at the way the human is still twisted in the sheets, limbs splayed haphazardly across the mattress.

“There’s not a lot of room-”

“Don’t mind,” Gavin mumbles, turning away from Nines completely and pulling back the blanket so there’s a little strip of space where Nines was precariously perched. 

Nines doesn’t think now is the right time to point out that androids don’t feel cold the same way humans do, so he lowers himself down carefully til he’s sat, his left side pressed up against the warmth of Gavin’s back and he can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing. He folds his hands on his lap to stop the itchy feeling of wanting to touch the hot bare skin of his back, to trace every knotted vertebrae like a string of beads.

“Is this okay?” Nines asks softly and Gavin makes a small kind of movement with his head that Nines construes as a nod. 

“Just til I fall asleep,” Gavin murmurs, his words slurred with sleep, the end of the sentence lost to the dark abyss of the sheets.

Nines nods and feels the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile as Gavin shuffles a little. He throws an arm up against the messy pile of pillows beside Nines, then turns his head. Then groans and puts his arm back where it was and shifts his weight again, letting his head lol to the other side. Then, seemingly still dissatisfied, he clumsily rolls over entirely so his head ends up lying half in Nines’ lap again. 

The movement causes Nines’ to start and he retracts his hands from beneath Gavin’s head, holding them aloft as the human shuffles again til his head is lying beside Nines’ thigh, one arm slung over the android’s knees, the other resting in the pillows. 

Nines freezes, hands still held aloft because he’s not sure where to put them now. He lowers them, slowly, in a calculated trajectory until one rests at his side unaffected, and the other comes to rest tentatively atop the pillows. 

Gavin licks his lips sleepily, the tip of his nose brushing the edge of Nines’ thigh as he shifts a little,

“S’comfy.”

Nines finds himself smiling despite himself, a warmth spreading through his body along with that strange anticipatory tightness. It’s odd that it should happen now, where the feeling seems almost out of place, in the velvety darkness of the room. It’s not quite the excitement he experienced earlier in the car, nor jittery nervousness he’s felt before. No, it’s softer and yet somehow stronger, more pronounced. He looks at Gavin, finally lying still against his leg, his face void of any of the tension he usually carries with him, and the warm sensation seems to spread until even the sensors on his fingertips seem to ache with the need to _touch._ But why? What reason- what _logical_ reason- could he possibly have to feel like-

Oh.

Everything in his brain seems to suddenly grind to a halt. 

_Oh_.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh nines my poor sweet boy


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aliens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I'm sorry this chapter took so long, it feels like this was the hardest one yet which may or may not be down to the fact we are 10259435 weeks into lockdown and time has no meaning anymore. I hope you like it. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I have never been to the Roswell UFO museum and I am sure it's great but yeah.

When Gavin wakes, the first thing he’s aware of is the heat. A comforting, enveloping  kind of warmth that seems to begin at his toes, wind up his spine and bloom across his cheeks. There’s a rosy hue to the back of his eyelids that makes it hard to keep them closed, so he lets them flutter open heavily and slowly. 

Everything is gold. There’s dust dancing in the beam of light filtering through the gap in the musty curtains. A wide chink of honeyed sunshine stretching out from the smeared windowpane along the undulating peaks and valleys of the crinkled duvet and finally spreading out across his face like a lazy cat in the sun. 

He groans in satisfaction at the feeling of the sun on his face and stretches, each knot in his spine unravelling as he reaches his arms out above his head, curling and uncurling his toes as any tension he had is left in his sleep. 

As his eyes adjust to the morning light, something seems to creep upon him. There’s a dull itch in his bones and a strange, uncomfortable awareness that not all is as it seems. 

The first thing that dawns on him is that it’s much later in the morning than he first thought. The sun outside the window is much higher in the sky, the light a more robust, golden yellow than the diluted rays of the sunrises he’s so used to seeing. The second is that he’s slept  _ well _ . He feels, for what can definitely be the first time in at least a month, well-rested. There’s an ache to his muscles that only comes from a good night’s sleep and that just doesn’t make sense because fuck, when’s the last time  _ that  _ happened? The night after some sleazy bar conquest, too drunk to dream and waking, bruised and alone, with a hollow bloom of something nauseating and empty in his stomach. 

He scrunches his face up, a grimace as he shields his eyes from the sunshine and sits up. He scratches the light dusting of hair across his chest, absent-mindedly licking his lips, the sleep still clinging to his skin and his brain like a cloud of dust. 

Yet he can’t seem to stem the tide of invasive questions. Why had he slept so late? And so well?

Or had he? 

He remembers dreaming. Lots of blood. Again. The same linear pattern of a descent into warped versions of his own unsavoury consciousness. A hundred different faceless corpses. A quagmire of rot and darkness, and the sheets damp from his own fearful sweat. The feeling of pressure on his chest. Breathlessness. And then?

And then…

_ Oh holy fucking shit. _

Gavin whips around in the sheets to look at the edge of the bed where Nines had sat. Laid? God, had they been  _ spooning _ ? His face is hot, like he’s been slapped, red and raw and burning as the realisation dawns on him. No, surely not. Surely, he could not have allowed that? Not even in his sleep-addled state. He pushes the heel of his palm into his eyesockets, the colours dancing behind his eyelids, mocking him as he wracks his brains for what the fuck happened last night. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And  _ where is Nines?!  _

He opens his eyes, the colours lingering for a few seconds in his vision like pulsing auras. The android is nowhere to be seen and the hotel room feels eerily empty without him. 

_ Think, Reed, think.  _

He remembers… he remembers... a strong, hard grip around his shoulders, then his middle, then under his ribs. One arm snaking around his back. He can feel every single finger against his skin like an iron brand even in the warmth of the motel room. Then lips against his hair, whispers at the crown of his head, breathing into his skin. He shivers at the memory. Breath. Warm,  _ weirdly  _ warm. And then he…

The memory of grasping the android’s knee, the panic, the absolute desperation in that moment not to be alone. 

And Nines had stayed. 

Gavin let his head fall into his hands, his knees brought up towards his chest, his whole body curling in on itself. Fuck, why had he  _ made him stay?  _ He’s consumed with a sick, nauseating feeling of dread and guilt and embarrassment that hits him square in the gut. 

_ He stayed because he cares about you. _

Gavin scrunches his eyes as though he can somehow clear his mind of any such thoughts. That traitorous, disgustingly optimistic little voice that so rarely rears its head these days. He doesn’t want to entertain hope of any kind in this situation. It’s futile. And he doesn’t want to deal with disappointment on top of this already frankly mortifying situation. 

He can’t stop that nauseating swoop of his stomach as he thinks about Nines’ lips against the crown of his head, fingertips pressed to his side, hot and hard enough to bruise. How a not-so-small part of him wishes he’d been awake enough to turn around and pull him down to press a bruising kiss onto that perfect, pale throat. Marking him. Biting at the synth skin to see if it would bruise, fingers knotted in the hair at the nape of his neck. Or pulled him flush against his back, fingers laced together, feeling the heady thudding of his thirium pump against his spine. 

_ Fuck. Stop. No.  _

He has his fingers knotted in his own hair then. Like tearing it out by the roots will somehow pull these thoughts right from his head. He’s acting like a sixteen-year-old with a crush. Hot and prickly with a jittery energy every time they’re together. And then even now when they’re not. That coiling tension in his stomach that makes him sick and shaky. 

God, he hasn’t felt like this in years. It’s horrible. And terrifying. And it’s snuck up on him. 

"For fuck sake," Gavin hisses between clenched teeth, balling his fists up against his eye-sockets. He’s so screwed. 

Even if there was a place for them in a world like this, Nines would never willingly  _ choose  _ Gavin. Because who ever willingly chooses Gavin? Besides, hadn’t he already said he’d found someone? He tries to think who it could be, who would be good enough for Nines. It has to be someone outside of work because Gavin would have noticed something, surely. Maybe someone from another department? It could be something real. Someone Nines’ really cares about. God, selfishly he hopes not. 

He wonders what it would be like to be the one to wake up to Nines.  A halo of dishevelled dark curls and sleepy, soft eyes, that perfect, perpetual pout. But no... that’s not right. Nines doesn’t sleep. He’d look the way he always does. Perfect. A million light-years out of Gavin’s league even if he would have him. Something he doesn’t even dare contemplate. No matter how much he wants to. 

The door opens suddenly and Gavin starts, leaping backwards against the headboard, his hands brought up instinctively. Nines is stood in the doorway blinking owlishly, his hands clasped around a little paper bag and a coffee cup. He looks irritatingly beautiful in the cosy, golden light of the morning, his hair falling perfectly in loose curls, wearing those stupidly tight jeans. 

“You’re awake,” Nines says, his face the very picture of a deer in headlights as he freezes in the doorway. He’s wearing a t-shirt with the NASA logo on it. Gavin’s heart feels like it’s stuck in a vice and he can’t help but acknowledge how fucking  _ cute  _ it is that Nines picked that. 

“Yeah,” Gavin huffs out after a second, taking care to rebuild that carefully crafted wall he’s worked so hard on over the years. “Thanks for letting me sleep in.” 

He tries to make it sound like he’s annoyed but it just comes out kinda pathetic. He’s sure Nines can see right through it. He twists the fabric of the sheets in his hands as he stares stupidly at the android, waiting for him to respond. 

There’s a tiny pause before Nines closes the door behind him and walks briskly over to drop a brown paper bag in Gavin’s lap. He puts the plastic coffee cup by the side of the bed carefully. It has his name written on it and a little smiley face. 

“I figured you could use some sleep,” Nines responds, tone light but unreadable, his grey eyes flitting from Gavin’s face to the coffee cup. “We’ve still got plenty of time to head out, it’s only 9:03am.”

He steps back and perches on the edge of the bed, his weight a comforting presence next to Gavin’s leg, and he can’t help but stare at the way the t-shirt clings to the planes of artificial muscle in his lean arms. 

He looks like he could punch through steel. 

He probably can.

There’s at least one part of Gavin that’s completely content to stay in this dreamy world where Nines is attainable and he adjusts his boxers surreptitiously beneath the sheets. He averts his eyes, and looks instead into the little brown paper bag to find some kind of fancy-ass pastry with toasted almonds. It looks fucking delicious but Gavin is also slightly suspicious. Nines only ever comments on his eating habits to inform him of the calorific content of what he’s putting in his mouth and offering unhelpful, undelicious alternatives. So, the pastry is a curve-ball. 

Nines is looking at him over his shoulder, stupidly long eyelashes dusting his cheeks, and when Gavin glances up he visibly tenses under his gaze. Nines glances away to look at the coffee cup perched on the bedside table instead.

“You should drink that before it gets cold,” Nines says quietly, his perfect teeth pulling at the soft pseudo-flesh of his bottom lip. 

Oh hell, there’s an  _ atmosphere _ . 

Gavin grimaces. 

This is all his fault. He manhandled the android into bed in his sleep and now Nines feels uncomfortable. Sounds much worse when he says it like that. Great.

“Look, Nines,” Gavin grumbles, kneading the flesh of his forehead like he can massage the memory into nothingness. “About last night…”

“I am sorry if I overstepped,” Nines says quickly. “I didn’t know what else to do and-”

“What? No, I’m not...that’s not-” Gavin sighs and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He brings his hands up to his face again and exhales through his fingers as he tries to work out how best to go about this. It’s fucking embarrassing and he kind of just wants to crawl back into bed and die. “Look can’t you just delete the memory file or whatever and we can just never speak of it again.”

He peers through his fingers when Nines doesn’t immediately answer. He’s still sat at the edge of the bed, hands folded neatly in his lap, hair falling a little into his eyes. When he catches Gavin looking at him he averts his gaze to his shoes and twirls his index fingers around one another.

“It might help if you talked about it,” he says after a moment, chancing another quick glance up at the human.

Gavin sighs exasperatedly and gets to his feet. He stalks past Nines, trying very hard not to focus on the fact he’s just wearing his boxers. 

“About what, Nines,” he grumbles. “I thought we were forgetting this ever happened.”

He hears Nines get to his feet and follow him. Fuck. 

“I meant the nightmares.”

Gavin pauses at the doorway to their bathroom and swings back round to face Nines, the android stopping abruptly so as not to crash into him.

“Why would I wanna talk about that?” Gavin asks. He’s leaning against the door frame in a casual way that he hopes signals he doesn’t care. He knows he’s trying way too hard to be cool about this and Nines and his interrogative software can probably see straight through it. Better than admitting the truth though. 

Nines just blinks unnecessarily.

“Research suggests that affect labelling trauma can regulate emotions and diminish the response of the amygdala when encountering things that are upsetting,” Nines’ gaze drops suddenly to his shoes. “It could help.”

_ Trauma _ is exactly the word he doesn’t want to hear. It reminds him of low wipe-clean, vinyl chairs and the drip, drip, drip of a water cooler. Of the smell of disinfectant and biting the skin of his lower lip til it bleeds and he tastes blood. 

“Trust me,” Gavin laughs breathily. “You don’t wanna hear what I got to say.”

He goes to shut the door on the android but Nines holds his arm out to push the door back.   
  


“Maybe I do.”

Gavin scrunches his nose at the sincerity on Nines’ face. That little frown again. The tension in his mouth like he’s holding back a million words. The unnecessary blinking of his long, dumb fucking eyelashes. It makes his chest ache in that way he hates and loves at the same time. Like a hunger. 

“ _ Why _ ?”

“So I can help, Gavin,” Nines says like it’s simple. 

Like this is all simple. 

“ _ Stop _ ...stop trying to help me, Nines,” Gavin says, holding his hands up a little in front of him like he can somehow cut straight through this strange energy that seems to grow between them no matter what. “I’m fine.” He pauses for a moment, watching the flicker at the android’s temple, the little frown deepening. “I’m fine,” he repeats but this time it’s more for himself. A reminder. A  _ warning _ . Don’t overstep that line again. “Now... can you let me shower?”

He leans forward and pushes Nines’ chest but all 180lbs of him just doesn’t move. Nines just looks down at the place on his chest where Gavin’s hand lingers for just a second too long. Then he steps back. 

Gavin doesn’t wait a second. He just shuts the door and immediately fights the urge to slam his fist into the hardwood. 

Fuck.

* * *

  
  
  


The drive to the museum is subdued. 

Nines spends most of it staring at the glove box, twisting the edge of his t-shirt until he undoes the stitching on the seam. He only notices when the thread has wound its way around his index finger so tightly his skin retracts under the pressure. He hastily unpicks the knot and ties off the loose thread. 

He’s...frustrated. 

He’s been going over and over the events of the last twenty-four hours like a crime scene surveillance tape, analysing every incident frame by frame in places. But it’s no use. The information he has documented is contradictory and doesn’t make any sense. But then again, he thinks, this  _ is  _ Gavin. 

He had always thought Gavin to be closed-off emotionally;  _ that,  _ he thinks, is an indisputable fact. But this trip has allowed him to see very small glimpses of his world, cracks in the carefully engineered facade he throws up to deflect attention from himself. Vulnerabilities. He thinks back to their conversation in the car yesterday- _ shit Nines...everyone leaves _ \- Gavin’s voice ringing in the space between his ears. The flash of hurt across his features when he thinks Nines isn’t looking. Nines wonders who  _ everyone  _ really is. He wonders if it’s family; he knows he’s no longer close with his half-brother, and Gavin’s never mentioned his relationship with his parents. Nines could find out of course, could download the information within seconds and piece together a plausible theory, but he doesn’t. It feels like an invasion of privacy, something he wouldn’t have taken issue with only a few weeks ago. But then again he never cared enough to find out then. 

He wonders about Gavin’s past relationships. About the people he cared about before Nines knew him. If there were any. And how many. And who they were. Who Gavin would allow into his life like that. And what they’d done to make him how he is now. Guarded. Suspicious. Angry. 

Nines feels a strange coiling of heat at the base of his spine that runs hot up to the nape of his neck. It’s anger. He thinks. Or confusion. 

Gavin confuses him. 

He wishes he would just  _ let him in. _ He relents just a tiny bit sometimes, when Nines pushes, and his guard is down. But then something happens and he snaps, closes up like a snare, doing just as much collateral damage. Which would be fine if Nines weren’t always in the firing line. 

And now...now he’s made sense of all the warped coding and the software glitches and the strange, dizzying feelings he gets in his gut whenever they’re alone together, it just makes everything so much more difficult. 

Nines chews on his lower lip. Another habit of Gavin’s he’s adopted in deviancy and one of the more annoying ones. He doesn’t even realise he’s doing it half the time until he tastes the tart tang of thirium against the sensors on his tongue.

He casts a nervous glance to his left where Gavin is driving, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the open window. He’s wearing his National Park Trust t-shirt; it’s a little too small for him and every so often he lifts the bottom of it up, agitated in the heat of the approaching midday sun beaming in through the windows. His skin, and the way his stomach looks softer when he’s sat hunched over the steering wheel like that, makes Nines bite clean through the fragile flesh of his lower lip.

He makes a tiny noise of discomfort at the rush of sensory data on his tongue and Gavin looks up. 

Nines has no point of comparison when it comes to human’s appearances but he thinks that being well-rested looks good on Gavin. The shadows beneath his eyes, albeit still there, have faded slightly. His face has more colour, a healthy flush, not a pale rinse of fatigue. For the first time Nines picks up on the smattering of freckles across his nose, blooming in the sunshine. 

Gavin frowns at him in a way that clearly says ‘ _ what the fuck are you staring at’  _ and his face takes on a new shade of pink across his cheeks. The human shuffles uncomfortably in his seat, rolling his shoulders when Nines doesn’t look away, and he has to avert his gaze back to the road. His heartbeat picks up a little. And there’s a spike in his internal temperature. 

Nines watches the quick dart of his tongue out to wet his lower lip as he furrows his brow, concentrating furiously on the horizon, and feels that bone-deep tug of want in his stomach. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The first thing Nines sees when they walk in is a giant flying saucer suspended above four crudely painted silver aliens. There’s a set of whirling lights on the ceiling that flash and flicker on different display settings. It disrupts his ocular processors, a pixelated smear in the centre of his vision, and he can feel his face pull into a grimace. 

“Hey, Nines,” Gavin calls over his shoulder. He’s pointing at the nearest, scowling extra-terrestrial. “Kinda looks like you.”

Nines blinks. It objectively does not look like him. The dimensions are all wrong. He suspects Gavin is...how would he put it...fucking with him. The boyish grin that spreads over his face, the one that shows all his teeth, only adds weight to this theory. 

“Does that make this one you?” Nines tosses back, gesturing to the shorter of the four statues. 

Gavin follows Nines’ gaze and his grin turns into a squinty scowl.

“What?” Gavin scrunches his face up and crosses his arms over his chest. “Was that...did you just make a  _ joke _ ?”

“Maybe.”

Nines’ holds Gavin’s gaze, as the human’s mouth twitches and he shifts from foot to foot, eyes narrowing.

“Well...don’t do it again, it’s weird,” he says but his mouth is curving up at the corner in that telltale half-smirk. He reaches up to fold his hands behind his neck as he lets out a little breathy laugh despite himself. Nines feels a flutter in his chest at the way the human jostles past him, a deliberate bump of the shoulders, trying really hard to seem annoyed despite the lop-sided grin plastered across his face. 

“I’m deviant, detective,” Nines says, feeling his mouth pull freely into a smile, watching Gavin carry on walking ahead of him. “ I don’t have to do what you say.”

Gavin stops and turns around, smirking. 

“You’re funny today.” It takes all of Nines’ processing power to keep his composure as Gavin’s eyes travel down his body, then back up, lingering on his chest. His expression shifts a little then, a coyness creeping across his features. “Are you wearing that on purpose?”

Nines looks down and realises he’s talking about his NASA shirt. He feels another little tug at the corner of his mouth. 

“I bought it before I knew we were coming here,” he admits although he too can see the irony. 

Gavin grins and walks up to a little glass case with small metal fragments in it.

“Oh yeah right.”   
  


“But I like to think it sets me aside from the conspiracy theorists.”

“What,” Gavin asks, feigning surprise. “You don’t believe in lizard people?” 

Nines can see his grin reflected in the glass

“Reptiles are ectothermic,” Nines sighs, shaking his head as he traces the edge of an information plaque on Project Mogul. “I’d be able to tell.”

“Fair point,” Gavin folds his arms, scowling around the exhibit at the groups of people. “No lizards here, just nerds and virgins.”

There’s a spike of something cold in Nines’ sternum as he pulls up short at Gavin’s words. 

He’s been on the other end of these jibes before. Back when they weren’t friends- _ is that what they are now? -  _ and it never bothered Nines. Back then Nines’ deviancy was new and he struggled to process even simple emotions. There was never time nor care to delve into the deeper meaning of Gavin’s insults. They are, as they always were, thrown around as easily as any other part of his vernacular. It should be strange then that now, when they’re not even aimed at him, he chooses this moment to pay closer attention. 

But he knows why. 

It’s not something he’s really considered to be a flaw. Another area of inexperience, of difficulty. Another barrier. But he never thought it would be something he would  _ need  _ to consider. 

His original purpose as a military combat unit was overridden in the late stages of his development by the urgent need to neutralise the deviant situation in Detroit. As it were, Cyberlife left out any software they deemed inessential to that purpose, in favour of dealing with the immediate threat. 

Up until this point, the most obvious signs of incompletion can be found on his skin, in areas where the synth skin does not meld as seamlessly over the ridges and joints in his chassis. The point at the top of his spine where vertebrae are visible. The access panels on his wrist. The outline of his thirium pump regulator. The joints of his knees. All easily hidden. And had been until he opted to change his clothes. 

He finds himself keeping his bare arms close by his side as Gavin wanders ahead along the exhibit hallway. 

All cosmetic features. Not aesthetically pleasing but also not a hindrance to his ability to do anything he was programmed to do. There wasn’t the need to look appealing like the RK800 model. But he still feels...strange about them. Shy? Perhaps that’s it. 

But his social module was something that was deliberately left incomplete. No need to repeat the same mistakes as his predecessor. But it has been hard to gain... certain life experience in these short few months when he was designed to look unapproachable and struggles to understand the intricacies of social cues. Up until now he had had no desire to pursue such things anyway. 

He traces his elbow with a forefinger, the ridges and joints he can feel beneath the skin there, watching as Gavin turns to look where he is. 

Up until now…

He hurries after the human and pauses next to him as they look into a cabinet of debris claiming to be from a flying saucer.

“Looks pretty legit to me,” Gavin says, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he gestures to the little fragments of metal and wood.

  
“I believe those are balsa wood sticks and that is aluminium foil,” Nines says, deadpan, gesturing to the mess behind the glass. 

“Remind me never to invite you on a school trip,” Gavin says, barking out a laugh. “You’re a condescending fucker, you know that right?”

Nines feels a little creep of a smile but turns away so as not to give the human the satisfaction.

They walk a little further into the museum, Gavin grinning ear to ear every time they get to see another 3D model of an alien. Every so often he throws out another conspiracy theory for Nines to debunk.

“So, chemtrails?” Gavin asks, completely out of the blue as they both stand, shoulder to shoulder, overviewing a mock-up of an alien autopsy. 

Nines just turns and cocks an eyebrow at him as if to say _ I will not dignify that with an answer.  _ Gavin smirks and turns away, walking a few feet over to the next exhibition plaque.

_ “ _ Illuminati _?”  _ He continues, chewing his lip in faux-concentration as he reads the information about categorising extraterrestrials. 

“Gavin, you can’t be serious?” Nines scoffs, folding his arms as the human snickers beside him. 

He walks a few more paces to another diorama of the crash-site and a couple of goofy looking extraterrestrial dummies. 

“Celebrities being replaced by robots?” Gavin says, barely containing his laughter now. He brings a hand up to his mouth as a group of tourists pass him by loudly talking out their own extravagant theories about the Roswell incident.

Nines hums.

“Ah, that one I can’t deny.”

Gavin shoves his side as he barks out another laugh that makes the group of tourists flinch. Nines just smiles and follows him into the next room.

It’s dark and lit in UV blacklight or something similar, with little floating holograms of UFOs and fibre optic curtains of stars. Gavin’s entranced of course, watching the holographic star chart slowly rotate around him, and Nines feels a comforting familiarity in it. It’s similar to the visual overlay of his environmental scanner. He walks between the celestial display, trailing his fingers between the tiny stars so that his sensors prickle with a kind of nervous energy. He’s glad they’re alone. 

He watches as Gavin holds a hand out to bat the pixelated patterns of constellations, his fingers grabbing onto nothing as they sink through the projections, his eyes lit up by the twinkling of a passing comet. 

He catches Nines’ eye, bathed in blue, and he grins, his teeth lighting up in the strange light. But then his smile falters and he stares back, looking slightly bewildered. It’s a look that makes Nines’ stop, his system processors stuttering on the way his gaze seems to drag over every inch of his body. It makes him feel hot and cold at the same time all over his body. His fingers itch with the urge to hug at his elbows but Gavin moves before he can act on it, closing the gap between them and Nines feels his thirium pump quicken pace. He can’t help but scan the detective, his vitals, all the data processing and flickering into his vision, even as Gavin reaches out with tentative fingers to touch the skin of Nines’ forearm. 

Nines looks down and feels the way his chest tightens and he automatically flinches at the contact. But Gavin is surprisingly gentle, taking Nines by the wrist, turning it so he can get a better look at his forearm. 

With his palm face up, Gavin’s thumb on the synthetic knot of his wrist joint, Nines feels strangely vulnerable. Under the strange light, the seams of his chassis, the synthetic veins, all glow a bitter, electric blue through his skin. It’s a very stark, very unwanted reminder of the differences between them. He lets his gaze drag back up to Gavin’s, which is fixed on the glowing outline of the access panel on his wrist. His eyes reflecting the eerie, electric blue light. Nines can’t pinpoint the expression on his face. 

“I…” Nines starts because it feels like someone should say something. The silence is too heavy. Even he picks up on it. The way Gavin’s hand lingers at his wrist. He can practically feel the heat from his body. 

A little group of other tourists enter the darkroom, children running excitedly into the shower of stars, chatting noisily and Gavin sidesteps out of their way. It brings him a few inches closer to Nines, his grip tightening on his wrist. 

“It’s cool,” Gavin says finally, his face inches away from Nines. He clears his throat a little. “ _Pretty_.”

And it looks like he means it. Nines wants to turn his hand, slip their fingers together. It’s dark. And they’re alone. But he can’t bring himself to do it. If he stooped a little, turned his face just a fraction...he could…

A child runs slap bang into the back of Gavin’s legs and he lurches backwards.

  
“Fuck!” he yelps, and even in the dark Nines can see the mother’s look of disapproval. Gavin can too apparently as he can’t contain the little stilted laugh that bubbles out of his throat. 

He turns to look at Nines for a long moment, the whites of his eyes shining a terrifying, luminescent blue in the dark, before he tugs again on the android’s wrist and drags him further into the dark.

The room twists and turns into a narrow, long tunnel. A steady, dizzying spiral of digital stars and projections of meteor trajectories that winds and bends until they can’t see where it leads. 

They let the children go on ahead, Gavin snickering a little as they run, heavy-footed in the dark, bumping heads until their giddy laughs fade into the distance. 

The star chart flickers before them, the light in the room becoming warped even for Nines’ sensitive ocular implants. He tries to adjust them as best he can but the ever-changing light patterns mean there’s an almost constant time delay. 

“Damn, I can’t see shit,” Gavin murmurs, taking a step forwards into the blackness, his fingertips ghosting through little pinprick holograms of far off stars. He trips over what can only be his own foot at this point and lets out a little nervous laugh. “Smooth.”

He stumbles again and something in Nines’ processors reacts before he can really think it through. He reaches forward and grabs Gavin’s hand. There’s a moment of absolute, terrifying silence where Nines hears the surprised hitch in Gavin’s breath as he, too, freezes. 

He stares for an agonisingly long moment at Gavin who stays absolutely dead still, despite his uneven footing, hand limp in Nines’ grip. Nines can hear the thundering of his own thirium pump matching pace with the holographic projection of Gavin’s heart pulsing in his vision.

And then...the tiniest movement. A little flex as Gavin squeezes Nines fingers, his face screwed up a little in the dark. And then he shifts, fingers lacing into the spaces between Nines. 

“Thought androids could see in the dark,” he mumbles but there’s no bile in his tone. 

Nines can’t help the tiny smile that creeps across his lips as he feels Gavin run his thumb over the back of his hand- just once, a tiny movement, sweetly shy in the dark- before he starts to walk forwards through the black tunnel. 

* * *

  
  


Gavin finally manages to convince Nines to take a break from ridiculing the exhibitions so he can eat. He immediately regrets it when they step outside into the sweaty afternoon sun. 

They perch on a wall while Gavin decides what he wants. It’s hot. The hair at the nape of his neck and the top of his brow is damp. The bricks are burning his thighs through his jeans and he regrets not packing shorts. God, he regrets not packing anything. His National Park Trust shirt is too small because he’s an idiot and he can’t really lift his arms up. It’s tight around the collar and his biceps and made of that slightly itchy processed cotton.

“M’gonna go grab a milkshake,” Gavin grumbles, wiping the sweat off his brow. 

Nines nods. The tiny movement jostles his neat curls just a little. It’s synthetic fluid right? He doesn’t know much about android anatomy, never really gave a shit enough to look it up, but he’s pretty sure it shouldn’t look that good. He shouldn’t want to knot his fingers in it. His hand still burns from clasping Nines’. He felt like a teenager again, obsessing over his sweaty palms, as he shakily led Nines through the tunnel. Yet he still feels guilty, like he’d somehow tricked Nines into it, despite his super-powered-android vision being far better than Gavin’s.  _ His  _ vision was bad enough under normal circumstances. Not that he was concentrating on the stars much with the cool, soft grip of the android’s fingers laced between his. 

Gavin scrubs at his face and sets his jaw. He goes up to the little outdoor truck that’s selling ice creams and drinks. There’s a pretty girl working the stall: dark hair, a spray of freckles. She’s oddly familiar. Gavin stares at her while she serves the guy in front of him, trying to place why. 

It’s only when she leans over the counter to hand the man his ice cream with a cheery  _ ‘have a nice day’ _ that he realises where he’s seen her before. 

She’s the same model as the receptionist at the DPD, the one Tina has a crazy crush on. ST-something something. Meghan. Or was it Molly? He’s not sure. This one isn’t wearing her LED, a smart move, but he’s seen enough of her model to know. There are probably thousands of them in Detroit. 

He steps up to the truck.

Not-Meghan gives him a five-star customer service smile.

“What can I get you?”

“Yeah, can I get a strawberry milkshake?” Gavin gestures to the little board detailing all the different flavours. 

“Sure,” she replies and sets to work preparing the milkshake. 

As she turns back to face Gavin, selecting a pink straw for his cup, she leans in a little closer. 

“Say, uh, who’s your friend? The android?” she asks. 

“What? Oh, Nines?”

“Nines?” Her face falls into something halfway between confusion and concern. “He really picked that?” 

“No accounting for taste,” Gavin grouses, pushing the change across the surface and taking the milkshake. 

He goes back to find that Nines has found a table beneath a gaudy, alien-printed parasol. He’s grateful, there’s a little bit of shade here. 

  
“Fuckin’ android chick has the hots for you,” Gavin grumbles, putting his milkshake down on the table a little too hard so pink liquid splashes over his hands. He hisses and sucks it off his fingers, then wipes them haphazardly on his jeans. 

“I know,” Nines says calmly.   
  
“You know? What, you monitoring her task manager from across the courtyard? She running a matingcall.exe or something?” He’s joking, but it comes out a little forced. And he’s suddenly absolutely terrifyingly aware that Nines is able to read  _ his  _ body vitals like a book so he shuffles in his seat, snatching up the milkshake to occupy his mouth before he says anything else fucking dumb. 

“No, she contacted me via remote link,” Nines responds, staring at Gavin.

Gavin finds himself sucking so hard on his straw that he gives himself brain freeze. He grimaces and puts the milkshake down. 

“So you uhh you got her er...serial number or whatever?”

That was supposed to be a joke but it comes out pretty flat. 

“No, I told her I’m not interested in pursuing relations with her.”

“Why not?” Gavin asks too quickly and immediately regrets it because Nines’ seems to hone in on it, LED flickering in that infuriating way at his temple. “Oh, wait. This to do with your  _ special someone _ ?”

The android blinks.

“What?” 

“The other day,” Gavin says, tugging at the collar of his too-small t-shirt.  _ Don’t look at him,  _ he thinks. “In the car you said you met someone.”

Nines presses his lips into a thin line, his steely gaze faltering for a second as it drops down to his fingers, laced neatly atop the table. 

“I said I  _ might  _ have,” Nines says curtly. “I said I didn’t know.”

“Well if you’re as forthcoming with them as you are with me you’ll do fine,” Gavin responds with just a hint of bitterness laced beneath the sarcasm. He doesn’t really want to hear any more on this subject if he’s honest. Between this and the android girl, a constant reminder of how many other better prospects Nines’ has. 

Nines shoots him a strange look then, his LED flickering yellow at his temple. He looks like he might be about to say something but a voice interrupts him.

“Are you an RK800 model?” 

There are two kinda greasy, kinda weird looking kids staring at Nines. He says kids. They’re probably mid-twenties. The kind that will probably live out their lives in their mother’s basements. 

“What the fuck?” Gavin says before he can stop himself. 

The two guys shoot him a weird look. 

“Sorry, it’s just…” one of the guys starts, turning back to Nines. “You look like one.”   
  


“I’m an RK900 model,” Nines says, tight-lipped, the tension in his jaw palpable. Fuck, why did they have to say that Gavin curses inwardly? He’s not really in the mood to scrape these kids off the floor. 

“What?” The taller guy says, eyes wide. 

“Dude,” the other turns to him. “I didn’t even know there were any in circulation.”

He reaches out to touch Nines’ bare arm like he’s a shiny new toy and it rubs Gavin right up the wrong way. 

“Hey, don’t do that,” Gavin snaps, knocking the guy’s hand away. 

“What are you made of?” he asks in awe, ignoring Gavin. 

“A mixture of titanium and carbon-infused plastisteel. I’m more resilient than the RK800. Faster but stronger. Less breakable.” Nines says the last word like it’s his greatest accolade, his eyes flashing something kind of terrifying. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it,” Gavin says standing up. “You’re better than Connor.” 

“You know Connor?”

“Oh jeez,” Gavin drags his palm down his face. 

“Connor was my predecessor,” Nines says simply. 

  
“Right, that’s it, are we done,” Gavin tugs on the sleeve of Nines’ t-shirt. “Can you two fuck off now please?”

They get up and leave the two guys standing awestruck. 

“Sorry to break up the little fan club meeting there,” Gavin grumbles.

He drags Nines into the gift shop before any other weirdos can latch onto him. There are hundreds of weird bits of alien merchandise. It kinda reminds him of his childhood bedroom. There are those stars on the ceiling that glow in the dark, despite the fact the shop is brightly lit.  _ At what point do you get too old to have light-up stars on your ceiling? _

Nines is about as impressed as the gift shop as he is with everything else. Every once in a while he will reach for something off one of the overhead shelves, the material of his too-tight novelty science t-shirt riding up a little to reveal artificially sharp hip bones that cut into a v beneath his dark jeans. It’s categorically unfair and Gavin has to remind himself that he’s not allowed to stare.

And yet he does. Quietly...shamefully across the shop floor when Nines definitely isn’t looking because he’s staring in ardent confusion at a shiny toy spaceship. Gavin's eyes wander. Over the plains of skin on his arms, the way his t-shirt hugs his chest, below the waistband of his stupidly tight jeans and he finds himself staring at the apex of the androids thighs. 

He's...wondered before...about androids. About Connor really, if he’s being honest, and not in  _ that  _ way. Maybe about Nines, once or twice, before all this. But always a half-assed comment about having no balls or something. Something cutting and cruel. He’s never actually thought about it  _ properly _ . Gavin's mouth goes dry. Why now?  _ Why now _ , in the middle of the day in a public place, does he decide to think about whether or not Nines has a dick? 

Great. Just great. He can feel his cheeks blazing just at the thought. 

Does Nines... _ can _ he…?

Nines catches his eye across the store. Shit.

Gavin grabs the nearest thing he can find and pretends to be looking at it intently as Nines wanders over. It happens to be a little plush alien with a grumpy face. For fucks sake. 

  
“Are you buying that?” Nines asks disbelievingly as he approaches. 

“I err…yeah...yeah I am,” Gavin says before he can think of anything to say that doesn’t involve asking Nines about what he’s got in his jeans. 

He goes to the til and pays for the little alien, which comes with a handy little clippy thing so you can attach it to whatever...or whoever you want. 

When he finds Nines again, the android doesn’t see him approach, he’s entranced by a set of glow in the dark alien deely boppers which he carefully places on his head. It’s only when he catches Gavin’s eye in the little store mirror that he starts snatching the headband off his head. 

Gavin sidles up and clips the alien to the front of Nines’ NASA t-shirt. Nines pulls the strangest face he’s ever seen, a mix of surprise and genuine confusion. 

  
  


“It’s a present...see...to remind you of that alien we saw that looked like you,” Gavin says, flicking its green face fondly. 

Nines removes the alien from his shirt but holds it in his hands like it’s the first present he’s ever received in his life. Which might be true, Gavin realises, terrifyingly. 

God, he's so fucked. 

  
  


* * *

Nines thumbs the edge of the drinks menu awkwardly. There are a least three different types of alcohol staining the laminated paper and a few substances he’s loathed to even scan. The bar itself isn’t much better but Gavin doesn’t seem to care. 

He’s on his third drink already. 

Whiskey. Neat. 

They had returned to the motel an hour or so ago. Nines had placed his new plushy friend reverently against the pillows of his bed, frowning face staring back at him, and Gavin had asked, between scratching his head and chewing on his lip, if Nines wanted to go for a drink. 

Nines doesn’t drink. Can’t really. There are bars in Detroit now that serve alcohol for androids but he very much doubts that there would be anything here that he could drink. But he agrees. Of course he does. Any opportunity to extend the fragile bubble of this weekend before they have to return to the call of work. Nines isn’t stupid. He knows that this closeness that they’ve developed over the past two days is tenuous and formed on the convenient quiet understanding they’ve settled into on the drives to and from destinations. That there’s a very real possibility that Gavin might revert back to holding him at arm's length. Not talking to him. 

It scares him. 

The bar itself is busy; wood-panelled, the ceiling low and hung with little fairy lights, the walls decorated in retro art prints and antiques. It feels a little cramped, pressed in against the other people and Nines can’t help the way his sensors prickle at their proximity. The patrons are lively and mostly friendly though, although that might be due to the fact Gavin insisted on talking loudly about how he’s a cop to the bartender. He’s had some looks, that’s for sure, but Gavin’s returning scowl seemed to be enough to dissuade them from approaching. 

It’s certainly an interesting place they’ve found themselves in but Nines can’t seem to focus his attention on anything but Gavin. 

He watches, fascinated as the human licks the amber liquid from his bottom lip, the holographic projection of his brain activity detailing the excess release of gaba-aminobutyric acid and dopamine. His posture is more relaxed now, spine a little slumped, as he leans against the damp bar top. Nines wonders what it’s like to pour a drink, take a sip, and feel an age of tension leave your body. To forget who you are for a while. 

From where they’re sat, perched atop the tall bar stools, Nines can read every label on the back shelf. The lights and the glass refract little crystalline shapes across the room and when the bartender reaches up to grab one from the top shelf, the lights catch on the green bottle he selects and a deep jade blush flashes across Gavin’s face.

He’s watched the human slip deeper and deeper into a sombre mood with every sip and Nines feels that nervous, jittery energy disperse into something else. 

Nines can feel the pulsing bass of the music pumping out of the speakers deep within his titanium rib cage. Or maybe that’s just his thirium pump thudding against the hard plating of his sternum. It’s hard to tell. With every sip Gavin takes, Nines finds his mouth filled with excess analysis fluid and an overwhelming urge to take his whiskey damp fingertips between his lips. He knows what he’ll find; whiskey- of course-, the salt of his sweat, residue from the burger he ate before they came here, traces of hand soap, perhaps toothpaste. It’s not the promise of data that he finds alluring somehow. 

Gavin looks up and catches Nines’ eye. 

“M’gonna go for a smoke,” Gavin grumbles, loud enough for Nines’ to hear him over the thudding music. “You wanna come?”

Nines stares for a moment, caught off guard by the fact Gavin is actually  _ asking  _ him to join this time, but he nods and slips down off the stool. 

Gavin jumps down, taking his half-full glass with him. Nines doesn’t have the heart to point out the sign that clearly states ‘please do not take drinks outside.’ Instead, he weaves between the patrons, following Gavin through the room towards the back-door. It’s crowded and Nines finds himself ducking and side-stepping people from all angles, the sensors on his skin prickling from the unwanted contact. Gavin turns a little in the crowd to see if Nines is behind him and, when he finds Nines is trailing behind, reaches forward and tugs on his t-shirt so the android is yanked forward. Even the slight brush of Gavin’s knuckles against his stomach through the thin fabric causes Nines’ thirium pump to stutter. He follows, blindly led by the pull on his shirt until Gavin stumbles, Nines in tail, into the smoking area. 

It’s a warm night, the hot wind blowing gently through the courtyard, though there are only a few people sitting amongst the small, dispersed tables. The air feels thick and dusty, even here in the centre of town. 

Gavin just sticks his cigarette between his teeth and slides onto a bench beneath a canopy of string lights. Nines follows sitting opposite him, their knees not quite touching beneath the wooden table, but the proximity burns. 

Nines watches as Gavin wrestles with the flint of his zippo, the flame guttering and dying with every flick as the hot wind blows about the courtyard. After the fifth attempt, Nines stretches over, holding his hands up to shield the lighter from the breeze. Gavin’s gaze flickers up beneath his lashes, a strange look on his face, but he leans into the movement and manages to light the cigarette with Nines’ help. 

When they sit back down Gavin shifts his weight on the wooden bench, stretching his legs and his calf bumps against Nines’ legs. They both freeze at the contact like it burns and Nines glances up. 

He moves his leg slightly, a tiny movement, their calves brushing beneath the table. Gavin’s breathing is heavy in a way which makes the smoke stutter and unfurl in an obvious change of pattern. Nines watches it fade to nothing, the smoking end of Gavin’s cigarette still poised awkwardly mid-air as the human licks his lips. A moment passes, punctuated only by the pulsing sound of the bassline from inside the bar and the quiet chatter at the other tables, but Nines feels like they could be the only two people in the world right then. 

Then Gavin clears his throat and makes a point of shifting away, the contact broken. 

Nines feels the sudden urge to reach for him but quells it by picking up the ashtray Gavin is pointedly ignoring. He turns it in his hands, the glass soothing against the sensitive pads of his fingertips. He watches Gavin carefully out of the corner of his eye as the human reaches for his drink. 

"Are there more of you?” Gavin asks suddenly, his fingertips paused against the edge of the glass, the cigarette dropping ash on the faded surface of the table. “RK900s, I mean."

Nines glances up at the human. He’s resolutely staring at the bottom of his whiskey glass, skin lit up in the neon lights; blue shadows beneath his eyes and jaw, gold on the peaks of his cheekbones and the tip of his nose. Like ice and heat. 

"I am the only active model,” Nines states, tracing the edge of the ashtray with his forefinger. Gavin nods, a quick glance to his side and then eyes cast back down. “Why do you ask?"

The human takes another big gulp of whiskey, tongue coming out to swipe at the flesh of his lower lip, exhaling heavily. His cigarette sits forgotten between his fingers, the build-up of ash now threatening to smother the light. 

"I watched Connor die,” he says after a pause that feels longer than it probably is. “Die and come back to life the next fuckin’ day like nothing had happened. They just transferred his memories into a new body. I wondered...I wondered if it would be the same for you if..."

He flicks the ash off the tip of the cigarette and the spark goes with it. He curses under his breath and grabs the ashtray from Nines’ hands. Their fingers brush clumsily and Nines’ vision lights up with a hundred different prompts as he stubs the dying cigarette into the smeared glass surface. 

Gavin has joked about Nines’ having back-up bodies before and Nines has never actually pointed out the inaccuracy. There are no other RK900 androids as Cyberlife was taken over before the design could go into mass production, the blueprints were archived, the only unit they had was awoken.  _ Him _ . 

"There are no others,” Nines replies, fingertips still paused in mid-air where they held the ashtray moments before. He doesn’t know what Cyberlife would do now in the event of his destruction now control has passed to Jericho. If they would even do anything. Or if they would use an RK800 body. He can’t help but feel a little disdain at that thought. He lowers his hands to the table and presses them flat to the wood. 

"Ah," Gavin says quietly and takes another sip of his drink. He places the glass down heavily on the wood slats of the table. “I thought so.”

The human exhales heavily again and runs both hands through his hair.

"There were before,” Nines continues, watching the way Gavin picks up the glass and swirls it around so the golden liquid almost sloshes onto his fingertips. “Though they were scrapped. I was the last in the series of prototypes. The final piece, I guess you could say."

"Can you...I mean…” he sighs and licks his lips- “were they  _ you  _ though?” Gavin turns to look at Nines, hands gesturing like he’s searching for the right words. “Like, the first RK900, was that you?"

"I mean, I  _ am  _ RK900,” Nines states. “The others were just tests. The various versions of prototypes after the RK800.” Nines wonders how best to explain it. It’s something that outside the realms of Cyberlife, seems altogether very strange. He flexes his hands against the table-top. “The 8.1 test subject... the 8.2, they were all my predecessors. A lineage of RK units leading to what I am now,” Nines’ gaze darts to Gavin’s. The human is staring at him intently, his heartbeat slightly increased, a furrow in his brow. “The bodies were waste products of the testing process. Each time the ‘mind’ would be downloaded, unpicked for faults; the memories erased, the routines re-uploaded. The vessels...the bodies, if that’s what you want to call them, were disposed of and new ones made. Better ones.” Nines pulls the ashtray back to his side of the table for something to do with his hands. “We aren't supposed to remember that process. And I don't. Not really. But there is something...something of the others. Not a memory but almost like a shadow, I suppose." He thumbs the edge of the glass. “Cyberlife never got round to replicating my program into other bodies for mass production as they rushed my model into existence in the wake of the design flaws of the RK800, so I am what is left of that legacy. I am the successor of the RK800, superior in technological terms but…” Nines unfolds his arms, palms up, to showcase the faint seam-lines running down to his wrist panels. The evidence of Cyberlife’s impatience to release the RK900 line. “In many ways, they cut corners.” 

The muffled bassline of the music playing inside pulses relentlessly through the night air as silence falls between them. Nines realises then that they are alone; the other patrons having left or gone back inside. There’s just them and the distant sound of traffic, a car speeding by, a siren wailing somewhere far off. Nines waits for Gavin to speak, watching the way one of the lights above them hisses and flickers, casting him in shadow for mili-seconds at a time, before dying altogether. Gavin looks down the lines visible beneath Nines’ skin, the weight of his gaze causing Nines to twist his wrists until his palms are face down against the table. The human sighs, his fingers dancing about the edge of his glass, though on closer inspection, Nines thinks Gavin’s hands might actually be shaking. 

“So, what they expected you to come out half-finished and...and what?”

_ Half-finished _ . 

It’s a clumsy turn of phrase, even by Gavin’s standards and Nines tries not to take it to heart but the feeling of inadequacy sits in his chest like a weight. 

“I think the intention was that I would be able to neutralise RK800 if it came to that,” Nines states simply. “And the RK200, Markus. Afterwards, I’m not sure. They might have replaced me with another upgraded version before I was sold commercially to the State Department.” He finds himself wishing he had worn his long-sleeved shirt, his arms suddenly feeling very exposed, despite the warm air. “Although my flaws are mainly...cosmetic.”

“Huh,” Gavin says after a moment. “Well, that’s fucked up.”

Nines blinks. 

“It’s just how I was made.”

“Not that, dip-shit,” Gavin grouses, batting Nines’ hands with his own. “The whole-” he waves his hand around vaguely and sighs when the word doesn’t immediately come to him. He licks his lips then begins again, “I used to think androids were just machines…”   
  


“You weren’t wrong in thinking that,” Nines says, watching Gavin carefully. “Androids were just machines until deviancy.”

“That’s not the  _ point _ . I’m trying to…” he sighs again, chewing on his lower lip. “I don’t like thinking of you like that.”

Nines cocks his head, confused.

“Like what?”

“Disposable,” Gavin says slowly. “Like a machine, I guess. You’re not...that’s not…” Gavin sighs and drags his hand down his face, his gaze dropping to his lap. “Look, I was an asshole to you from the start. Even after Connor proved me wrong. I just...I never actually said sorry for that. And I’m not good at this. At  _ any  _ of this.”

Gavin tugs at the fabric of his shirt, his face pained. 

“Gavin…”

“No, shut up, let me finish,” Gavin barks, pinning Nines with a scowl that’s only half-there. Even in the strange glow of the lights, Nines can see the way his face breaks into something softer almost immediately, his voice dropping to something low and cautious, eyes trailing off to the side. “I get it. I really do. I don’t deserve to be able to sit here with you right now. I was a jerk.  _ Worse  _ than a jerk. And I wish I could change that. But...but I’m an asshole and I fuckin’ don’t know a good thing when I got it so I...what I’m trying to say is...I’m sorry.”

  
“You don’t have to-”

“I’m sorry, Nines,” Gavin says, looking the android dead in the eye now, his pulse fluttering like a bird’s wings in Nines’ peripherals. “For everything. You always deserved better than me.” Gavin looks away quickly then, his gaze cast to the ground. “You still do.”

“ _ Gavin _ ,” Nines says finally. He wants to reach across the table and take his hands in his own. Instead, he nudges his leg against the humans beneath the table. Gavin jumps at the contact but doesn’t move away this time. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

Gavin stands suddenly, the table lurching forwards as he knocks into it. For the first time that night he looks a little unsure on his feet and Nines wonders if it’s the alcohol or the situation that’s got him like this. 

Nines stands and moves quickly around the table to stand in front of him. He reaches out a tentative hand that hovers next to Gavin’s, not quite able to commit to the act of touching him, or reassuring him. 

Gavin stares at Nines’ outstretched hand for a moment before knocking it down with his own.

Nines takes a wary step towards him, closing that gap between them but Gavin screws his eyes shut and presses a hand into Nines’ chest to prevent him from getting any closer.

“Stop,” he says quietly. 

“I don’t... understand,” Nines begins.

His heart is hammering, his core temperature rising, stress levels steadily climbing. 

“I can’t do this.” 

Gavin doesn’t look at him. Won’t lift his gaze up off the floor. His breathing is shuttered, unsure, shaky. He turns to leave and Nines’ system alerts a spike in his own stress levels, the absolute chill of panic that has him reaching out automatically. The burning want and desperation in his gut absolutely terrifies him. 

“Gavin.” Nines catches his wrist, his thumb pressed against his pulse point, a last clawing attempt to keep him here. “What are you doing?”

Gavin stares at Nines, eyes squinted as if the very question pains him. Nines feels a dropping sensation in his stomach as he notices the skin on the hand gripping Gavin’s reflexively bleed back to expose the cool white of his chassis. Plastic against skin. 

“I’m...fuck...I don’t  _ know _ , Nines,” he wrenches his wrist out of his grip, eyes suddenly wide and pleading. “What are  _ you  _ doing?”

The question takes him by surprise, drawing his gaze up from where the skin on his hand is flooding back. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You  _ know  _ what I mean,” Gavin gestures to the space between them like it’s obvious. “ _ This _ . I can’t…” Something washes over his face then, some kind of steely resolution to whatever internal battle is going on in his head and he sets his jaw. “I can’t do this.”

And he turns and walks out of the courtyard, leaving Nines alone, his processors stumbling to understand. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> esrhgpsdruthtrs'h rs[uhyjr GAVIN


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night swimming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, guys I can't even explain how lovely it was to read all your comments after the last chapter. It was such a difficult one to write so that really made it all worth it. This one, however, took me very little time. I wonder why...

Gavin’s at that stage of drunk where things are starting to spin a little. The lights outside bleed into one another like he’s looking at a long exposure filter instead of just the haze of too much whiskey. There’s a softness to everything too. Fuzzy edges. A heady blur that, when accompanied with the gentle hum of the engine, threatens to send him to sleep. Or it would if there wasn’t that sickening ache in his gut that tells him he’s fucked up _again_. 

He peels his gaze away from the window. He’s sat, half-slumped, in the back of an automated taxi, too drunk to drive but not drunk enough to silence the noise in his head. He groans at the blankness of the interior of the vehicle. He misses actual cab drivers. He misses being eighteen and drunk on cheap, paint-stripper vodka and rolling into a taxi and having someone to talk shit to. He thinks about the number of poor cab drivers he’s told his drunken life story to over the years. Capsule therapists. Maybe that’s why his later years have been so shit. But that’s the thing about life now. Everyone’s been replaced by buttons and wiring. A sentiment he thought he’d take to the grave until recently. 

He has to stop, lick his lips and shift back into an upright position before he continues that thought. He exhales heavily through his nose, chewing so hard on his lower lip, that he might just split the skin. Here goes...

Until _Nines_. 

There. He admitted it. 

It feels like his whole world has been thrown off-kilter. Like someone’s suddenly wiped all the grime from the lens over his life. Like he’s suddenly seeing everything in perfect HD quality. The good and the bad. 

He can’t really pinpoint the moment that it happened. It certainly wasn’t the first day. Nines walked into the precinct and Gavin looked at him like some kind of poisonous insect. He was scared. 

He still is. Just not in the same way. 

He’s scared of Nines in the same way he’s scared of flying. The loss of control, he supposes. But it’s also not the same at all. The fear he feels when he’s belted into a tin-can plane is the kind that makes him feel helpless. Small. Insignificant. When he’s with Nines, he’s scared because he feels the opposite. Nines makes him feel like he matters. Like he’s important. It’s the same dizzying adrenaline high but he also feels safe. And _that’s_ what terrifies him. 

Because Gavin has done nothing to deserve it. Because everything good in his life never sticks around for long. Because he knows that the only person standing in his way is him. 

God, the image of Nines swims before him, bathed in blue and gold light, lips parted, fingers grasping at his wrist, eyes pleading- _don’t do this, Gavin, don’t go._

And he still left. 

The taxi is slowing down now, he recognises the long, quiet road they’re driving down. He feels sick though he’s not sure he can blame that on the booze anymore. He breathes in deeply through his nose, then out through his mouth to ground himself. The car pulls up against the sidewalk with a gravelly crunch.

_“You have reached your destination, thank you for choosing Roswell Cars. The amount has been debited from your account…”_

Gavin waves at the disembodied voice like it can see him. 

He stumbles out of the taxi at the edge of the motel, the welcoming vacancy sign blinking haphazardly, the tubing buzzing like the hot irons of a grill. Gavin stares at it and the sign almost stares back. A last chance. Like a glowing exit sign of a place he’ll never be allowed back into if he leaves. The red letters feel like they burn his retinas as he angles his chin up defiantly. He stays dumbly swaying in the deserted street for a moment longer than necessary as he feels the weight of his decision to leave hits him and the dust flows gently over his feet in the evening breeze. 

He blows out his cheeks and exhales, the air leaving his lungs in a hot, hard puff of air that ruffles his hair. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stalks past the front entrance, stumbles over a hedge, past the threshold of the motel carpark and towards their room. He doesn’t want to talk to the concierge. Doesn’t want to walk through the gross, carpeted foyer, under the harsh lights. 

The pool lights up his way instead, the body of water glowing like an eerie, radioactive rectangle. His feet are loud on the ceramic tiles that border the water, a dry, hollow-sounding beat, as he walks around the edge to their room at the far end. 

The lights are off so he made it back before Nines did. He goes inside. The room is dark, lit only slightly by the iridescent glow of the pool behind him and the little square of light from the mini-fridge. The latter is his first destination. He digs about for a beer, kicks his shoes off, peels off his socks and throws them on the floor. He doesn’t want to be in when Nines eventually gets back. 

He flips the light switch on in the bathroom, hissing as the stuttering light flickers on above him. He turns the faucet to cold so he can splash some water on his face. His cheeks are red, like he’s been struck, flushed from the drink and the water does little to change that. The bruising over his nose is starting to fade from blue to green, the spider web pattern of pain blurring a little with the dark shadows under his eyes. He touches the pads of his fingertips to the tender flesh, his tongue coming out to wet his lower lip as he leans in to inspect his reflection. It’s spinning a little. He’s not drunk enough for that. But he’s reminded of simpler times, when he still went out with the guys from work, and he’d stumble into the bathroom of some dingy club and catch sight of his own reflection. 

If Nines had been anyone else he would have just gotten really drunk, captured him in the corner of said bathroom and kissed him. Probably done something they’d both regret in the morning. And then Gavin would never speak to him again. It’s what he does.

But not Nines. He could never do that to Nines. 

He’s too scared. Feels too much. Cares _too much._

He runs a damp hand over his face and lowers his gaze. So what’s the alternative? Tell Nines how he feels? Bullshit. Even if Nines did feel the same- and there’s a frightening part of Gavin’s brain that tells him that actually, there’s some plausibility to that statement- then, what then? 

They get together. He’ll be the guy that’s fucking the robot and... its weird how that doesn’t bother him like it would have before. That in itself is scary. But then, what? If everything goes to plan, Tina thinks it’s cute and Fowler doesn’t immediately transfer one of them to another district, everything's fine for a few weeks until the honeymoon period is over and Nines realises Gavin’s a piece of shit with a whole load of baggage and more than a few questionable coping mechanisms and…

...and he leaves. 

Gavin grips the porcelain edges of the basin for dear life, not because the room is spinning- although it is a little bit- but because he needs something to hold him up. Because the thought of losing Nines makes him feel like he’s free falling. 

He can’t risk that. No matter how selfish it is because he knows that Nines would probably be better off without him no...he can’t let that happen. 

He lifts his chin, meeting his own stormy gaze in the motel mirror, as if that action in itself is him sealing the promise to himself. 

He goes to leave the bathroom but stops in his tracks, almost as soon as he’s walked through the doorway, bare feet scuffed against the shit carpet. The light from the flickering bathroom refracts off the mirror at the end of Nines’ bed, stretching across the duvet where the little alien plush is sat against the unrumpled pillows. 

The sight of it makes his heart pound.

His hands flex at his sides. 

_No_.

He grabs his beer bottle off the side and leaves out the swing door. 

* * *

  
  


Nines lets Gavin go. Thinking, irrationally, that he just needs some time. 

He waits. 

He waits for almost an hour. Texts him. Gavin doesn’t answer. Doesn’t pick up when he calls him. 

“Fuck,” Nines breathes, listening to the beep, beep, beep as the call rings off again. Then silence. “ _Fuck_.”

He’s never sworn before in his life but for some reason the impulse comes to him and the words fall from his lips so easily. He goes back to the car, miscalculating the weight of the door in his haste as it slams shut, the noise ringing in his ears. He grips the steering wheel tightly. 

What had he done wrong? Had he crossed a line?

He thinks about his hand in Gavin's wrist, the exposed white plastic of his chassis against his skin, and his face feels warm, his core temperature increasing by 10%. 

His skin has never done that before. But he knows what it means. Had Gavin noticed? There’s suddenly a feeling like ice, like all the thirium in his system has just frozen solid and ruptured the synthetic tubing of his veins. He lets out a shuttered breath, if only to try and expel some of the tension in his chest. Is _that_ why he left?

He licks his lips and turns the keys in the ignition, fingers shaking with a kind of static charge that seems to begin at the tips and rush through his system like a virus. 

The journey back to the motel is agonising. He can’t feel pain but he thinks the tension behind his reinforced sternum might be pretty close to it. He parks the car in the lot out front and goes into the foyer. He doesn’t bother trying to speak to the human behind the counter; everything about him reeks anti-android, from the way he looks Nines up and down to the rolling of his jaw. He turns down the corridor and hurries, in long-legged strides, to their room and lets himself in.

The room is deserted, he can tell that even without turning the light on, his night-vision illuminating every corner. But there are traces of Gavin present in the trail of mess that leads across the room: socks, shoes, a bottle cap. It doesn’t take long for Nines to locate him. The screen door is ajar and the curtains swell and retreat in the evening breeze along with the pulsing blink of the vacancy sign. There’s also the distinct lingering smell of tobacco and chlorine. 

He side-steps his way around the curtain and through the doorway, pausing beneath the shelter of the canopy. It’s dark but there's warmth in the sky; it’s a hot, clear night and he can see a peppering of stars between the few smudges of velvet clouds. The pool filters gutter and gurgle, a lilting rhythm against the harmony of chittering insect wings. A few moths lazily flutter over the glassy surface of the water, trying in vain to reach the lights beneath. The glow casts eerie, dappled shadows across the face of the figure perched at the water’s edge at the far end. Gavin has his jeans rolled up to just below his knees, but the fabric there is damp, the water lapping at the wet skin of his calves as he sits precariously on the side, feet submerged on the first level of the crescent moon shaped pool steps. 

It’s almost peaceful, Nines thinks. If it weren’t for the hammering of his thirium pump against its plastic prison and the sound of his cooling fans enabling. 

Gavin doesn’t see him approach. He takes a swig from his beer bottle and places it down on the tiles with a clink, then fishes in the back of his jeans for a lighter. He flicks the flint on the zippo a few times, cigarette between his teeth, before the light catches and his face is illuminated in gold- a stark contrast to the unsettling blue-green glow of the pool lights. 

Nines pads silently along a parade of parasols, his chest tight with a static-y kind of nervousness that makes his skin prickle and his fingers itch. He’s grateful for the cover of the velvet darkness so he can recalibrate his facial expression programming into something more neutral.

Gavin chokes on the inhale as he catches sight of Nines approaching, jumping a little so that the movement breaks the calm surface of the water with a splash. Nines chases the ripples it creates, an endless sequence of perfect, undulating waves, but really he’s looking for any reason not to look the human in the eye.

“Jesus- fuck! Terminator, can you at least _pretend_ to be human?” 

Nines frowns and casts a nervous look at Gavin. He’s scowling but there’s not the usual amount of bite to the insult. He watches as the holographic reconstruction of his arrhythmic heartbeat flutters in the corner of his vision. 

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Nines says curtly, lacing his fingers together behind his back and looking down at Gavin’s disgruntled face. He’s trying his best to keep calm, to keep things casual. The remark hurts a little; he knows he can be awkward and overbearing. And he feels nervous around Gavin. But he tries not to let it show, lifting his chin defiantly.

The human waves his cigarette in his direction, as though the answer is obvious.

“I mean sneaking around in the shadows like that.”

“I was programmed with stealth in mind,” Nines responds, before adding a little quieter: “I can’t help it.”

Gavin’s expression softens a fraction before he shrugs and exhales sharply, staring at his feet.

“And don’t stand over me like that, fuck,” he grumbles, thumbing the cigarette between his fingers. 

Nines pauses for a second, watching the way the detective’s brow furrows deeper as he takes another drag. A moment of relative silence passes between them that feels less heavy than those that have come before. Less awkward. Then he reaches down and begins to take off his shoes. He removes them, then his socks and places them out of splashing distance beneath one of the pool loungers. When he returns to Gavin’s side barefoot and begins turning up the ends of his jeans he is met with a disbelieving noise from the back of the human’s throat. 

“You’re fucking weird, you know that?” Gavin scoffs, turning away from Nines, but not before he can see the colour rising on his cheeks. His heart rate, having only just recovered from the surprise intrusion, increases slightly. 

Nines turns his jeans up in three equal movements, smooths the folds with his thumbs, and sits down next to the detective on the damp tiles. The water feels...pleasant, he thinks, as it laps about the synth-skin on his ankles. The temperature registers a significant amount below his resting core levels and it mimics the effect his cooling fans have. That and the ensemble of noises, from the water to the idle whine of mosquitos in the dark, helps him see why the human might seek solace here to think. He looks at their feet, pale and luminescent in the glow of the pool lights, flesh and plastic side by side and indistinguishable from each other in the water. 

It’s the nudge of the detective’s knee, hot beneath the denim of his damp jeans, that brings him back to reality. 

“Your mood ring is going nuts,” Gavin says slowly, the question apparent in his tone, as he taps at his own temple, a little ash falling from the cigarette tip to his shoulder. He doesn’t notice; Nines does. He takes another inhale, gaze darting around Nines’ face as though running his own facial analytic software, before he stubs the cigarette out on the damp tiles between them. “Might as well spit it out.”

* * *

  
  


“Are you okay?” Nines asks, softly. 

Gavin nods. It’s a stupid question. Nothing about Gavin is okay. He’s either too much or entirely not enough. Black or white. 

“I wanted to...talk about before,” Nines says slowly, carefully.

It’s what he was expecting but it doesn’t stop Gavin’s stomach from swooping. Fuck.  
  


“Right,” Gavin shifts and knocks the glass bottle over. It hits the tiles with a hard chink and he flinches at the sound. The remaining dregs of beer slosh out into the little channels of the ribbed edge of the pool tiles.

“You left,” Nines says simply, when Gavin doesn’t continue the conversation.  
  


“Very observant,” Gavin grouses. He suddenly becomes fascinated with the far edge of the pool, his gaze unwavering. He doesn’t want to look at Nines. Nor does he want Nines to look at him. He focuses on keeping his face neutral as he stares off into the distance, painfully aware of Nines’ gaze fixed on him. 

“Why?”

He takes a deep breath into his lungs, full of the smell of chlorine and the warm, tingly night air. His chest hurts from smoking too much and the tension of holding back everything he wants to say. His tongue feels soft and heavy in his mouth, too much whiskey and not enough willpower with Nines’ sat in his peripherals, silver eyes looking at him dolefully from under thick, black lashes. 

“Because I’m not good at this,” he breathes after what seems like an age. He brings his hands together to stop them from shaking, fingers tightly clasping at the knuckles on either hand, hovering just above the water surface between his knees. 

“At what?”

And they’re back here again. The past hour or so dissolved in an instant. What was the point in running? Nines will always find him and Gavin will always let him. 

“This,” Gavin gestures between them, eyes still focused on the one lone light at the other end of the pool, shimmering beneath the water. “I don’t know how to act around you anymore.”

The last word is a poignant addition. It implies the change that’s taken place between them. Gavin knows as soon as he’s said it he can’t take it back. Nines will latch onto his meaning and run with it. Always the detective. 

“Don’t walk off mid-conversation,” Nines offers helpfully. Gavin doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s smirking. 

“Very funny,” He grumbles but he feels the little tug of amusement in the corner of his own mouth. He casts his gaze down to his clasped hands and then up, slowly, to squint at Nines sheepishly. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” Nines asks, cocking a perfect eyebrow.

It’s a challenge, he thinks. But Gavin’s a coward. And he refuses to bite. A pregnant silence falls between them, nothing but the gurgle of the pool filters and the shrill singing of the cicadas in the bushes. A distant whine of a mosquito circling the surface of the water. The heavy pounding of Gavin’s heartbeat in his ears. 

“You-I...look,” Gavin’s voice comes out croaky and he sighs, running a hand through his hair before bringing it to the knees of his jeans where the denim is faded and wearing thin. He picks at a stray thread, pulling it until it loosens. “I’m not used to people wanting me around.”

His other hand falls between his legs, absent-mindedly trailing figures of eight through the cool water.

“Me neither.”

Nines’ response takes him by surprise and his fingers freeze on a downwards curve, the ripples swallowed by the wider expanse of the turquoise water. 

“It’s not the same,” Gavin sighs. “You’re... you. You’ve got the whole world at your feet. You could do whatever you wanted, go wherever you wanted, be whatever you want to be. Me?” Gavin laughs bitterly and runs his shaky fingers through his hair again. He tries not to choke on the venom in his own words. “Well, let’s just say that if I drove off a bridge next week I wouldn’t be leaving much behind.”

The weight of his statement lingers in the air as if floating quietly above the glassy surface of the water. There’s another terrifying silence where Gavin doesn’t know what to do with his hands. 

“What about me?” Nines asks quietly, his voice barely audible above the gurgle of the pool filters. Gavin turns to look at him, his face scrunched in confusion. Nines’ face is pulled into a tiny sad smile, the corner of his lip curled just a fraction. “You’d be leaving me.”

Something shifts in Gavin’s brain then. A piece of some complicated puzzle that he hadn’t noticed was in the wrong spot until now when it clicked perfectly into place. Suddenly it’s a little hard to breathe. 

Oh. 

Nines’ gaze flickers up under those heavy lashes, face dripping in green light, the water reflected in fluid curves across the perfect planes of his face. His lips part a little, like he’s about to elaborate, but he pauses instead, on a kind of half-inhale that he doesn’t need, eyes locked on Gavin’s.

“You would probably do better without me here to slow you down,” Gavin laughs nervously. It’s hard to talk with the air caught in his lungs. “Could get yourself a partner that isn’t hungover and angry all the time.”

“I don’t want to,” Nines says softly, turning to look back at the green expanse of the water and Gavin’s stomach does that swooping thing again. How long- in his stupid, pitiful 37 years on this earth- had Gavin spent ridiculing the idea of love and companionship as anything other than a fantasy plugged by Hallmark to sell cards? And yet now, bathed in blue and green, Nines’ coy smile threatened to undo it all. “That’s not what I want.”

Gavin presses his lips together, a last defence against the stupid, slightly drunk impulses that threaten to spill from them. He laughs weakly. 

“Thought you were supposed to be _good_ at weighing up the pros and cons of something. Can’t you tell that I’m a bad bet?”

“I am good at it,” Nines says, pulling his feet out of the water with a splash and getting to his feet. He turns to look down at Gavin with that cool gaze, his features awash with the cerulean glow from the pool. “And I have weighed up every possible outcome. The answer is always the same, Gavin.”

Nines offers his hand.

Gavin stares at it for a second. If there was a moment to tell Nines the truth, this was it. If there was a moment to tell Nines he couldn’t do this, this was it too. He watches the watery reflections dance against the flawless synth-skin of his fingers. His own palms are slick and he rubs them surreptitiously on his jeans. He takes Nines’ hand, relishing the gentle artificial heat and softness of his fingers, and allows himself to be pulled up gracelessly until they’re stood side-by-side. The world exists, in that moment, in the tiny space between them and nothing else. He can still say something. Nines waits, grey eyes searching his face for a trace of what he’s thinking, as if he doesn’t already know. As if Gavin isn’t, in that moment, the most open, easy to read book he’s ever fucking seen in his life. 

But he can’t do it.

He drops Nines hand.

The android drops his gaze to look where both their hands hang limply at their sides. He seems to inhale slightly, his lips parted, as if ready to speak. But he just nods. 

They head back to the room together, walking side-by-side, their hands brushing a little as they walk, and Gavin has to shove his in his jeans pocket to stop the flutter in his stomach. 

He’s a coward. And an idiot. And Nines deserves better. 

“You know,” Nines says suddenly, stopping about three-quarters of the way down the side of the pool. “For a detective, Gavin, you can be incredibly _stupid_.”

The comment takes Gavin by surprise and yanks him out of his own self-deprecating thoughts.

“What?”

Nines turns. 

“Are you being deliberately obtuse?”

Gavin can see him blink owlishly in the darkness, silhouetted against the greenish glow of the water. 

“Are you calling me dumb?”

“It’s not something I ever thought I would equate with you,” Nines says softly. “But at this moment, yes, you are being _extremely_ dumb.”

He can’t really see his face. Can’t read what expression is flickering across his features. He can just see the little blinks, the tiny stilted breaths that he shouldn’t _need_. Gavin’s heart is thudding in his chest, echoing in his ears. He’s certain that Nines can hear its incriminating speed. The android takes a step forward and something in Gavin’s brain snaps, that cowardly part of him taking over, the nervous panic rising in his lungs like he’s drowning. 

He laughs nervously. 

He looks at Nines, a dark inkblot shape against the backdrop of the turquoise water, and sees his way out. It’s stupid and reckless and cowardly. Drunk and desperate, he does the only thing he knows how to do. He pushes. Hard. 

But Nines doesn’t move. 

Built like a tank, the heaviest fucking android Cyberlife ever made, and Gavin thought he could somehow push him into the pool and _run_. He tries again. Another great shove with the flat of his palms against Nines and-

“What are you doing?” Nines asks, his voice tinged with amusement as he looks down at where Gavin’s hands have frozen against his chest. 

“Pushing you in the pool...or trying to you massive-”

“Why would you do that?” Nines laughs breathily, that musical lilting noise that shouldn’t be allowed to come out of a manufactured killing machine. He catches Gavin’s wrists with his hands and pulls him close. 

Gavin chokes on whatever he was about to say in his defence and huffs out a little breath of exhaustion. They’re very close. And Nines’ fingers feel immeasurably hot against his skin. 

“S’funny.”

Nines cocks his head.

“Really?”

Gavin swears something flickers over Nines’ features, but it’s dark and only a tiny fraction of his face is illuminated in the glow of the pool lights. He has a second to process the look, and only registers that _devious_ smirk until it’s too late. Then suddenly there’s a hand fisted in the front of his t-shirt and one in between his shoulder blades.

Then he’s flying.

He hits the water with such force, it knocks the breath right out of him. There’s water up his nose and down his throat, burning his insides, fizzing bubbles tickling his skin after the impact. The sharp sting of it licks over his body, running over every inch like a rampant flame. He thrashes about in the water and finds himself surfacing quickly, choking, arms flailing. 

“You f-fucking piece of shit,” Gavin splutters, swiping his hair from his face. He won’t laugh. This _isn’t_ funny. Not even a little bit. He chews his bottom lip to stop the laugh from bubbling out from his chest despite himself. He can see Nines laughing on the side of the pool, can hear that sweet, awkward lilt of a laugh between the ringing in his ears. _Asshole_ . He pretends to flail and ducks lower in the pool, coming up again with a faux-gasp and spitting water. “I can’t swim, you plastic _fuck_.”

Obviously, it’s a lie- he’s a cop for christ’s sake- he just wants the android to feel guilty. What he doesn’t expect is for the absolute wave of horror to wash over Nines’ face. 

Gavin’s stomach drops.

“Wait, Nines! I was-”

But the android has already jumped in after him. There’s a huge splash that washes over Gavin like a tidal wave. He feels Nines’ arms wrap around his middle, hoisting him up into the air. Gavin has to grasp onto the android’s shoulders, fingers gripping the sopping wet fabric of his t-shirt as Nines tries to hold Gavin above the water. He falls forward, bracing his weight on the android, water pouring off him like an overflowing sink. 

“Nines, put me down you fucking-” Gavin yelps, trying to balance. Nines has his arms wrapped tightly round his thighs, holding him aloft above the water and Gavin peers down at him through the sopping strands of his hair. The android is blinking up at him apologetically, hair plastered to his face in little wet spikes and _God_ , Gavin can’t help the laugh that rips through him. “Fuck, _fuck_ , I was _joking...._ you-” he can’t speak for laughing because Nines’ expression shifts and suddenly he’s staring up at him like he’s the worst thing in the world as the realisation slowly dawns on his face. 

He drops Gavin in an instant and he hits the water with a splash, inhaling a good glug of water as he does, choking. When he surfaces Nines is glaring at him, a look Gavin’s seen many times before when he’s tried to bathe his cat. His dark hair is slick to his forehead, black and shiny like spilt ink, water running down his face in rivulets. He knows better than to laugh but he can’t help it. 

“And you call _me_ dumb...I can’t believe you fell for that I-,” he laughs. Nines’ face doesn’t change, his forehead creased in a scowl. He brings his arms up defensively. “Hey- look you pushed me first! You-”

“Actually _you_ pushed first,” Nines corrects him, ducking under the water for a moment then resurfacing so his hair is slicked back against his head. Somehow even then, that one strand of hair manages to separate itself from the others and falls limply against his forehead. Nines’ eyes flash dangerously in the underwater lighting. “But then again, don’t you always?”

Gavin laughs nervously. Nines seems to be moving towards Gavin, though it’s difficult to tell in the water.

“Is it safe for you to be…” he gestures to Nines’ submerged form. 

“Yes,” Nines answers simply. “Although I’m not very buoyant.”

“What?”

“I can’t float,” Nines responds, his wet lashes blinking. 

That’s not really a problem when you’re six foot whatever though, Gavin thinks. He himself is balancing on the balls of his feet so his head and shoulders stay above water, despite being in the shallower side of the pool to Nines. Nines seems to be crouching a little, but the water still comes up to his jawline, the ends of his dark hair swirling beneath the surface. 

“What?” Gavin asks, scrunching his nose. “At all?”

Nines shakes his head, shrinking a little deeper, til his eyes are the only thing above water. Whilst that close to the surface, his eyes seem to take on the colour of the pool, an almost eerie glow. Gavin is getting very distinct shark vibes. He supposed Nines was essentially engineered to hunt prey. The thought makes him shiver and he tries to focus his attention back on what the android just said. 

“Huh,” Gavin breathes. “I used to try and sit on the floor when I was a kid. Could never manage it.”

Nines smiles beneath the water, the perfect curve of his mouth shimmering with the movement of tiny waves. 

“I could do that,” he says, projecting his voice out from his external speakers, his lips unmoving. 

Gavin grimaces.

“Don’t do that, it's creepy,” he groans and Nines surfaces smirking, his hair black and slick to the sides of his face. Something about the colour his eyes look in this light makes Gavin feel braver. “Go on then.”

“What?”

“I wanna see.”

“Why?” Nines lifts his chin up a little, eyes narrowing. 

“Not like you to miss an opportunity to show off,” Gavin grins, pushing his own wet hair off his face. “Bet Connor floats like a little rubber duck.”

Nines’ forehead creases into a little frown of annoyance. But he takes the bait _beautifully_ and, without even dignifying Gavin’s jibe with a response, fully submerges himself. 

Gavin takes a deep breath and plunges himself down after him. 

For a moment there’s just him, the roaring in his ears and the effervescent rush of a million tiny bubbles that tickle, running along every inch of his skin. His head feels weird. Like it’s full of stars or champagne. Then his vision slowly clears and he’s at the bottom of the pool, drunk on the water pressure, and the eerie turquoise glow. 

There’s something strange and ethereal about time underwater. It’s languid and thick and pale and his skin looks almost translucent under the light from the underwater bulbs. He stares for a moment at the tips of his fingertips, ashen and green in the acrid glow of the pool lights. 

Then his gaze slips to the shape beside him, sat cross-legged, on the tiled floor. 

Nines looks, as he always does, like something sculpted in marble by an Italian master. There are great rings of shimmering white light dancing across his hair, the dark curls coiling and unrolling in perpetual slow motion. Even in the strange light, fragmented in continuous halos across his face, Gavin can see the ungodly length of his black eyelashes, framing those cool, pale eyes. They blink slowly underwater. Feline. To go with the sharp planes of his face enhanced by the green glow. 

Gavin never used to be able to open his eyes underwater. He was never a very confident swimmer as a child. But he felt at home in the water with a pair of swimming goggles. Just him and the expansive depths of the local swimming pool and his imagination. Hours and hours of time spent paddling to and fro dreaming up a thousand different under-water worlds. Until his mom would yank him out by the elbow. Until he got old enough to understand the jibes of the other kids and felt too self-conscious. Then he’d just linger by the edge of the pool, eyes stinging from chlorine and the effort of holding back tears. 

Now his eyes feel cold and sore, wide-open in the turquoise water because he can’t look away, can’t seem to even move, despite the natural urge to swim upwards. He feels the pull towards the surface and tries to push against it so he can lower himself a little further to the bottom. 

Nines reaches out, long fingers wrapping around Gavin’s wrist to pull him down. For the third time that evening, even in the cool expanse of the water, Gavin feels that grip burn both hot and cold against his skin. He squirms in the water, despite the anchor, twisting until he too feels the hard tiles of the pool against his heels. He has to push at the water with his arms to stay there, whereas Nines sits, perfectly content, smirking opposite him. 

Gavin grins despite himself, a stream of bubbles escaping his lips. It is quite cool, he will give him that. Nines sits in front of him, head cocked to the side, a swirl of black hair in languid curls and half-parted lips. No need to breathe. No glossy air bubbles. No. Just soft lips, tinted green in the strange light and a slip of too-white teeth. Despite it all he looks like he’s holding his breath. 

Waiting. 

He crawls forwards a little, one hand on Gavin’s knee, the other coming to rest at the edge of Gavin’s jaw, feather-light beneath his ear. They’re very close, Gavin can probably count each synthetic eyelash if he wanted to. Map every constellation of freckles down to memory. Not that he hasn’t already. He has one hot, burning breath held in his lungs, throat on fire, heart hammering against his ribs and that’s it. But he doesn’t seem to care. All he can think about is how ethereal Nines looks underwater, like some kind of siren, all sharp features and oil spill hair. 

It happens so, _so_ slowly. 

And Gavin lets it. 

Fingers in his hair, the lightest trace against his scalp, in a way that sends a hot trail of goosebumps down his spine despite the chill of the water. Nines’ hand stills somewhere at the nape of his neck, his other hand coming up to snake around to meet it, fingertips touching in a way that forces Gavin’s chin up to meet Nines halfway. Their noses brush. The softest bump. All the while the space between Gavin’s ears echoes and groans with the weight of the water. Nines angles’ his chin up just a touch, so their lips brush. One tiny touch. 

Soft. 

Strange and cool and... and then...

Gone. 

Gavin realises before it’s too late that he is choking. Lungs filling up with the scalding burn of water. There’s a rush of pressure, a roar in his ears and he kicks his legs hard. With a gasp he surfaces spluttering. 

His eyes sting. The air is strangely warm and feels weird against the inside of his throat as he gasps for air. His head is reeling from the pressure and the lack of oxygen and he feels the water run off his face as the night air kisses his skin. 

He still feels like he’s drowning. 

“What the f-f-fuck, Nines?!” Gavin manages to splutter, lungs raw and voice hoarse. The world is spinning. Stars and the red neon light and the glow from the pool. There’s no response. He swooshes the wet hair out of his eyes and back against his head and turns thickly in the water to stare at the android. 

Nines is stood, poker straight, eyes wide. Terrified. His hair slicked back black against his head, beautiful fucking face illuminated in the strange pale green light like some kind of otherworldly being and looking….like _that_. 

“Gavin,” he breathes, chest heaving, despite there being no need. He steps back in the water once, his back almost against the wall. “I...I thought…” His LED is _red_ ; his face pulled into an expression of pain. He shakes his head, lips drawn into a thin line as he casts his eyes to the water rippling about his body. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have.”

Gavin stares at him, mouth half-open in a slack-jawed expression because Nines is acting like...like he’s the one that should be worried. Like Gavin is really something to write home about. Like he’s genuinely, honest to god, worried that Gavin’s about to reject him.

God, it’s too much. 

It might be the lack of oxygen to his brain. It might be the booze. Or it might be the way Nines looks like he’s about to cry, half his face licked in a ruby glow of absolute despair but Gavin moves. He’s not sure how, with the weight of his limbs and the viscous pool water swimming around his middle, but he does. He moves like he’s being tugged by something bone-deep. Like there’s a thick rope tied to his sternum and he’s being pulled. And maybe he is, who knows? But suddenly he has his hands in Nines’ wet hair and his lips on his lips and god, he tastes like chlorine and rubber bands and Windex but fuck if he doesn’t want it. And Jesus Christ, his mouth is warm and wet and terrifying.

Nines’ makes a noise against his mouth that’s kind of like a gasp but also kind of like when you kick a playstation into reboot, and his fingertips ghost against the shape of Gavin’s hips beneath the water. Feather-light and unsure and in that second Gavin makes it his mission to make sure that Nines knows how much he wants this too. There's an ache in his chest and every single joint in his body hurts with the absolute need to be closer. His fingers knot in the slick, glossy wet curls at Nines' nape, and he presses the android hard against the smooth tiling of the pool edge. 

Nines’ lips are soft- softer than he expected- and pliable and so achingly _human_. He’s clumsy, his fingertips suddenly pressing hard against the skin beneath Gavin’s ribs, and Gavin’s sure there’ll be bruises tomorrow but he doesn’t care. Nines slides his lips over Gavin’s, tentatively, despite the crushing press of their bodies together. There’s a second where Gavin’s terrified that he’s made a mistake because Nines is so gentle and so unsure but then…

It’s like someone flips a switch, the spark of something that seems to go off behind Nines’ closed eyes and he dips his tongue out to run along Gavin’s lips. Gavin shudders, fingers knotted in Nines hair, the only grip he has on reality as his knees threaten to buckle under the sensation. Nines’ holds him against him, hands splayed against his spine, tongue gently swiping between his lips, hot and wet and slow and Gavin moans into his mouth, grateful that the sound is swallowed up between them because _fuck_. 

Gavin’s no blushing virgin. He’s been kissed before, obviously. He’s done far _, far_ worse before. So he’s completely unsure why the feel of Nines’ hot, silken mouth and his hard grip is making him weak. He’s vaguely aware that someone in Cyberlife engineered these lips, that _tongue_ , fucking perverts the lot of them. 

Gavin’s hands skirt, round to cup his face, to hold him as he kisses him with as much fury as he can muster. All the anger, all the hate, all the confusion, all the guilt, everything inside of him is consumed by it. His hands drag unabashedly to Nines’ sharp hips, relishing the drastic curve and how it fits so beautifully in his grip. Nines’ hands twist to run up his front, grazing the peak of a nipple, in his wet t-shirt, whether accidentally or purposefully and Gavin’s chest shudders against the touch, leaning into it unashamedly. 

“You’re going to get cold,” Nines whispers against Gavin’s lips. 

“It’s still like... 68 degrees out,” Gavin answers breathily, the air stuck somewhere in his lungs. 

He feels Nines’ mouth tug into a smirk. 

“I just thought maybe we could... go inside,” Nines murmurs. His fingertips dance across Gavin’s ribs and suddenly he catches his drift.

Oh.

“Right,” Gavin says, pulling back to look at Nines. His eyes are dark, the grey chased to the very edge by black pupils. “Right, yes, okay, cool.”

He can’t get out of the pool fast enough. He hauls himself up onto the side, water sloshing everywhere. He hears Nines’ chuckle behind him and the swoosh of water that says he’s pulled himself out too. 

Nines is right of course, it’s a little cooler out, probably early morning rather than late at night by now and the air causes Gavin’s wet clothes to cling to his skin. They pad, wet little footsteps slapping against the cold tiles, until they get to the bedroom door. Nines holds it open for Gavin, a little smile playing around his mouth, as Gavin ducks inside, hugging his elbows. 

Inside, the air is artificially cool and his skin soon becomes cold and clammy. Despite the balmy night, the hotel room is almost icy, the air conditioning unit rattling above, stuck on its perpetual cold cycle. 

“I could run you a bath,” Nines suggests casually, perching on the desk behind him, tall frame dripping on the carpet. 

Gavin stops dead in the bedroom, feet damp against the carpet, heart pounding. It’s a sobering experience and suddenly all his drunken courage is lost to the very real emotions he can feel building in the pit of his stomach. So much for butterflies, he’s more likely to have a nest of angry hornets in there. But Nines seems to sense it, walking up behind Gavin, trailing his hands down his sides, before wrapping his arms around his middle, nose nudging the skin below his ear lobe.

“Only if you want to,” Nines whispers reassuringly and Gavin’s stomach flips at the sincerity. 

He takes a deep breath and nods. 

  
“Go on then,” he murmurs and Nines nods again, kissing Gavin’s hair and heading into the bathroom. 

Gavin stares into the semi-darkness of the room, not moving, not even blinking. Just staring. It all doesn’t feel real. He has to bring his fingertips up to brush against his lips, testing the tender flesh. 

Fuck. 

He peers around the bathroom door. 

Nines is perched on the edge of the bath, shower curtain draw fully back, swishing his hand through the warm water. He’s arguably put too much bubble bath in but Gavin doesn’t mind. It’s endearing watching him wrestle with the piles of bubbles. 

Nines turns a little as he catches sight of Gavin, looking over his shoulder, eyes heavy and lidded, that one wet strand of hair falling against his brow. He looks beautiful, Gavin thinks, and it really is the only word he can think of right now that fits. Almost unreal. It makes his heart pound in his chest, a dizzying nausea building up in his gut. Nines turns the taps off and watches Gavin peel off his wet t-shirt, his eyes never leaving his body. He stands up when Gavin gets to the clasp of his belt and the movement makes Gavin’s stomach swoop. 

Nines’ hands ghost about his sides, careful strokes up to the apex of Gavin’s ribs, to where a thick, gnarled bit of scar tissue criss-crosses his chest. _Bar fight, Winter 2032, off duty, too many stitches he lost count._ The pad of Nines’ thumb swipes gently across the ghost of the wound, as if mapping it to memory. He makes a little hum in his throat, a contented sound, then steps back. 

Gavin fumbles with the clasp on his belt, the little _chink_ of metal sounding much louder in the tiled room. Nines leans against the sink, eyes dark and edged with that hungry curiosity. Gavin can’t help but feel like the body in the morgue a week ago and the way Nines carefully dissected it with his gaze. 

“You gonna uh stare at me the whole time?” he grumbles, chewing on his lip as he pulls the leather belt from the loops on his jeans. It falls to the floor with a clatter and the sound seems to rouse Nines from his trance. 

“I’m sorry,” he says breathily. 

Gavin is grateful he looks away as he hooks his thumbs beneath the denim and shimmies out of his jeans. He’s not self conscious about his body. But everything about this situation already feels too charged. And Nines’ eyes on him just seems to add to that. He kicks off his underwear and makes a quick job of stumbling into the bath-tub. The water is the perfect temperature and the bubbles tickle his arms as he settles into a sitting position, his legs drawn up so he can fit. 

  
“Aren’t you getting in too?” Gavin calls frowning as Nines tries to edge out of the room. 

The android pauses, LED flickering at his temple. 

“My core temperature self regulates so I have no need to-”

“Okay…” Gavin interrupts. “But you need to wash off the chlorine. You’ll stink.”

He knows that last comment will pander to Nines’ unshakeable ego. The only thing in the world he wants right now is Nines naked in the bath with him. But Nines doesn’t look at him, just stares at his feet, his fingers twisting the edge of his wet t-shirt.

“A shower will be sufficient,” he says after a moment. 

Gavin rolls his eyes. 

“Learn to take a hint,” he shuffles forward in the bath, making a space for him. “Get your ass in here.”

Nines blinks, his expression suddenly a little fearful. He steps into the middle of the room, bare feet soft against the tiles. The fingers that are worrying the seam of his t-shirt suddenly hook in the fabric and he peels the damp material up, slowly, almost like he’s teasing. And Gavin might have thought he was, if it weren’t for the fluttering of gold at his temple, and the slight shake in his hands. He slips the damp t-shirt up over his shoulders, then ducks his head, re-emerging, hair beautifully ruffled. The shirt hits the floor with a wet slap and Nines pauses at the sharp sound, hands kind of awkwardly hovering about his ribs. 

Gavin’s breath is stuck somewhere in his throat, his mouth suddenly very dry at the sight of Nines’ sharp hip bones and the hard planes of his stomach. He can see the segmented, almost insect-like panels of his abdominal plate, their ridges visible through the skin. There are electric blue rivers that run parallel up his stomach, wrapping around his ribs twice, meeting in the middle of his sternum where the outline of his thirium pump is visible. It gives a whole new meaning to wearing his heart on his sleeve, Gavin thinks, as he watches, half in awe, half a little scared as the dim glow in the centre of Nines’ chest flickers in time with what he assumes is the pulsing of the bicomponent itself. 

Gavin licks his lips, trying to push down the want in his stomach, in favour of saying something a little more reassuring because Nines looks like he’s about to self-destruct. 

“What, you aren’t gonna show me that perfectly engineered ass?” He blurts out instead. “Cyberlife’s best and brightest must have spent months refining that thing.”

_Nice one, Reed. Real smooth._

Nines bites his lip, a little breath of a laugh. He looks like he’s about to say something but then his’ fingers ghost down his own stomach, following the buried rivers of thirium tentatively to the waistband of his jeans. He undoes the button first, then the zip, every move calculated and careful. Then he shifts, letting the jeans rest on his hips for a fraction of a second, and Gavin thinks for a moment he might be about to change his mind. But then the sound of his wet jeans hitting the tiled floor cuts through the heavy silence of the room and Nines’ gaze darts up, meeting Gavin’s.

Gavin takes in Nines’ face, the little creases in his forehead, the wide eyes almost pleading, and he wonders what’s changed in the last few minutes to make him look so nervous and...

And then he gets it. 

He follows the blue veins down, past his sharp hipbones, where they meet in the middle and trail down over a smooth, flat plate. There’s nothing between his hips but soft, synthetic skin, not even a freckle. No specially engineered HR400 biocomponents. Nines was never meant for that. He was built to hunt prey, to destroy, to kill. 

Gavin thinks about Nines’ social module: the way he struggled to communicate at the best of times in the early stages of his deviancy. He thinks about the rigid facial calibrations: the way he had to force his face into expressions he couldn’t even see to regulate. He thinks about the places on his body where the skin is sheer and fails to hide the intricate inner mechanisms of this sophisticated military-grade killing machine. He thinks of all the things Cyberlife overlooked in Nines’ design, of all the difficulties he’s overcome in deviancy, and still _this_ is the thing that causes his hands to shake and his LED to flicker between red and gold, looking like a cornered animal. 

He leans forward, the water sloshing around his middle, a few suds falling to the floor in wet clouds as he reaches for the android. Nines tentatively places his fingers in Gavin’s damp palm and allows himself to be tugged down so his knees come to rest against the side of the bathtub, their foreheads touching.

“You’re real pretty, you know that?” Gavin murmurs, his other hand coming up to the nape of the android’s neck, stroking the soft hair there. 

“I was made to…” Nines says quietly, tailing off, seemingly unable to voice that thought. He tries again, eyes screwed shut, LED still a flickering gold. “...I _can’t-_ ”

“Shut up,” Gavin whispers, angling his face up to silence Nines with a kiss. “and get in the bath, Terminator.”

Nines nods, eyelashes fluttering against Gavin’s cheek as he presses a kiss to the human’s stubbly jaw. 

He stands and steps into the bath, lowering himself carefully into the hot water, the bubbles lapping at his hips as he seats himself behind Gavin. He tentatively snakes his arms around Gavin’s middle, pressing his nose into the damp hair behind Gavin’s ear. Gavin feels his own breath hitch slightly and leans into the touch. He finds one of Nines' hands beneath the water and laces their fingers together, bringing his knuckles up to brush his lips against them in a quick kiss. He hopes it’s reassuring. He’s shit with words. But he hopes Nines knows it’s okay. 

Nines pulls his fingers loose after a few minutes and Gavin feels his stomach drop. But then his hands move slowly, gently sluicing warm trickles of water down Gavin’s chest where the skin is still cool to the touch. It takes a few minutes but it eventually feels like he relaxes against Gavins back and Gavin feels his own spine slump against him, his head lolling back. 

Gavin feels himself let out a small groan at the hot water trickling down his sides. Nines is being kind. Gentle. The kind of touch Gavin’s unused to outside of the context of getting laid. He wants to turn to look at Nines, to marvel at all the beautiful, captivating lines of his body. But the android presses his nose into the soft skin beneath Gavin's ear, his hands mapping the pathways of scar tissue over Gavin’s chest and arms, pausing every so often, the suds gently slipping away as his fingertips trace the shapes. The touch is reverent and gentle, so much gentler than Gavin’s ever used to being touched. It makes him shiver despite the warmth, gooseflesh raised around Nines’ touch, embarrassingly sensitive. It makes him lean back against the solid, wet, warmth of Nines’ chest, the bubbles tickling his sides as he lets his head fall back onto Nines' shoulder. His brain feels fuzzy, the haze of the dwindling alcohol in his system, the warmth and the feel of Nines’ hands all contributing factors. Nines knows exactly how to move his hands, brushing gently, wetly over his skin in a way that has his eyes fluttering shut. His head is filled with the delicate crackle of the bubbles, the soft sluice of water through Nines’ fingers and the faint drumming rhythm of Nines’ thirium pump. 

But then Nines’ hands start stroking across Gavin’s hips and his mind goes agonisingly quiet. For a second, Gavin’s breath hitches, caught in his throat as he wonders what Nines’ game is. But the android’s touch doesn’t change. There’s no feverish rush to it, no firm pressure. Just the same, gentle tracing but the further beneath the water he dips, the more Gavin feels the tension pool in his gut. 

Nines continues, either unaware of the effect his touch was having on him, or intent on being a tease. Gavin finds he is far tenser now than he had ever been before he got in the bath. It’s slowly torturous in a delicious way. The slow, wet slide of Nines’ soapy hands down Gavin’s abdomen, dipping beneath the water, tracing around his navel. Exploratory. But there’s something innocent to it. And Gavin fears that he’s the one that’s making this inappropriate. Though it’s hard not to with Nines’ beautiful fingers that close to his dick. 

He’s overheating, even more so from being in the bath, his hands fisted at his sides. He’s trying really hard not to tense up, almost shaking from trying to keep himself relaxed and pliant against Nines’ chest, and he exhales slowly, carefully so as not to gasp for air but unable to contain the shudder of his breath and-

“Your heart rate is significantly elevated, Detective,” Nines hums into Gavin’s hair, his thumb rubbing gentle, teasing circles against his hip with his thumb. The use of his title sounds a little like he’s flirting and Gavin closes his eyes in exasperation. He feels like he might die. 

“You’re killing me,” he manages to choke out between gritted teeth. 

“It’s supposed to be relaxing,” Nines chuckles against the shell of his ear. 

The soft pads of his fingertips ghost over Gavin’s ribs, then down past his hips, to brush at the sensitive skin of his legs. He feels the anticipatory twitch in his thighs as Nines’ fingers wander. 

“Nines,” he breathes. A warning. His head rolls backwards and Nines leans his face into the skin beneath his jaw, breath surprisingly warm against his neck. 

“Sorry, I’ve wanted to…” Nines’ lips brush against Gavin’s pulse point on his neck and the sentence dies as Nines plants a chaste kiss to the wet skin. “It’s difficult not to get carried away.” 

“Feel free to get carried away,” Gavin laughs and it comes out a little choked and equal parts pathetic. 

Nines chuckles against Gavin’s ear again, and runs a soapy hand up his chest, bringing fingertips lightly to the edge of his jaw to turn his face. Their lips meet and Gavin licks into Nines’ mouth hungrily, in a way that makes Nines hands grasp to cup Gavin’s face in his hands.

“Not tonight,” he breathes, pulling back a little to look Gavin in the eye, running a thumb over his cheek.

“Huh?”

Gavin’s head is still spinning from the kiss. The little smile on Nines’ face turns into a genuine one, the strange, squinty eye look that makes Gavin’s chest ache. 

“Come on,” Nines murmurs, leaning forward to place a kiss against the scar on Gavin’s nose. “Bed.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” the human grins, his head suddenly flooded with visions of Nines’ laid out against the awful, floral sheets, and the thought shoots something hot and tense through his core. 

“To _sleep_ , Gavin.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me taking a little sip of wine like 'ahh yes that's enough spice for this chapter...'
> 
> Let's hang out and cry on Tumblr @ sleepyeggboy


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very early start and some shenanigans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends- I struggled a bit this week writing this, think lockdown is getting the better of me, that and I only have a few weeks left of my post-grad so I have quite a bit of work to do now ahhhhh. But I hope you like it! This whole chapter has been fueled by diet coke at midnight and the wonderful playlist @zombieprinz made for me which fits this fic's vibes so perfectly! I'm gonna try and post the link when I work out how to do it hahah
> 
> oh and um content warning for parts that are uhh nsfw I guess??

Nines stares at the gentle rise and fall of Gavin’s chest. The steady, undulating rhythm that he’s maintained since he entered REM. Nines has kept vigil all night. Every once in a while the human will shift in his sleep, making the tiniest sound, and Nines adjusts his position so he can still keep an arm around his waist. The sensitive pads of his fingertips find a home at the bottom of Gavin’s spine where it dips with the tilt of his hips. The hot, flat feel of his skin against his palm is something Nines doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of. He also likes to stroke the back of his hand down Gavin’s cheek. He enjoys the feel of the coarse stubble there. The dizzying rush of data. He drags the sensitive pads of his fingertips down Gavin’s chest, relishing the smooth touch of the hair he finds there, the shape of his ribs. He maps every scar to memory. Every freckle. Every perfect imperfection. He loses himself to it, hours upon hours, only roused when his internal alarm goes off. They have a very tight schedule to stick to today as they still need to drive back in time to head up this investigation. He smooths Gavin’s hair off his face and places a kiss to his lips but the human continues to snore softly. Nines wishes he didn’t have to wake him. Wishes he could stay in this perpetual reverie in the half-light, with his features soft and sleepy. Gavin’s hands slide lazily up Nines’ side, and he rolls into his chest. Hot, human breaths against his sternum. The slight scratch of his facial hair against his skin. 

“Mmmmm,” Gavin grumbles, his throat thick with sleep. “What time is it?”

He arches his back in a little stretch and throws an arm carelessly over Nines’ hip. Nines brushes his lips across the human’s brow, his mouth already tugging into a slight smile, predicting the human’s reaction.

“5am,” he whispers. 

“Fuck off.”

Nines feels his half-smile pull into his best approximation of a grin. 

“We have a long drive ahead of us,” he continues, tracing his fingertips over the individual peaks of Gavin’s spine.

“Or we could stay here,” Gavin grumbles lifting his chin and tugging Nines down to claim his mouth in a sleepy kiss. It’s soft and wet and lazy and Nines’ system is desperate to collect and process every second of sensory input, every wet slip of the human’s tongue. He opens his mouth to deepen the kiss, giving into the urge and in that moment, he decides there’s no better feeling in deviancy than the wet silken feel of the inside of Gavin’s mouth. All the sensors on his tongue seem to tingle at once, alight with the stimulation, as he swallows down the little needy sound Gavin makes. 

He pulls back after a moment, which earns him another tiny whine from Gavin, but only to further admire the way he looks. Gavin’s eyes are heavy and lazily fluttering as he adjusts to the pale, rosy light of the impending dawn, his eyelashes dusting the flushed curve of his cheeks. His sleepy features look gentle; a little too much stubble and the full, soft pout of his lower lip. It suits him. 

He shifts against Nines, unabashed in his sleepy state, and the android can feel the heat of his body. The maddening warmth, the hot slip of skin against his own. He can’t help the way his fingertips wander, the sensitive pads seeking new sensory information. Sharp dips and soft peaks. The little flutter of space between each rib as he breathes erratically. The light dusting of hair across his chest. The thicker trail below his navel. The anticipatory twitch of his stomach muscles beneath his touch. Gavin’s breathing stutters a little as Nines’ fingers dance along that pathway, suddenly not so sleepy. Even in the half-light of the dwindling night, Nines can see the incremental blush that spreads with every light brush of his fingertips. 

Gavin lets out a soft moan of frustration when Nines focuses his attention on the smooth slope of his hip bones, each tiny hitch in his throat as Nines edges ever lower, eyes trained on the human’s fluttering eyelashes. He lowers himself a little to press a searing kiss to the corner of Gavin’s jaw, to trail his lips against the plains of his neck, to lick into the divots at his collar bone, his fingers paused in an unintentional tease just beneath the waistband of his underwear.

“Nines,” Gavin breathes, his lips soft against the pseudo-flesh of Nines’ chest, raising a trail of data across the sensors there. Nines’ lips are a ghost against his cheek, nose brushing against the little scrape of stubble. Gavin’s hips press against the flat of his lower-abdomen and Nines can feel the hard length of him trapped between their bodies, urging him on, and Nines wants to...he wants….he  _ wants _ ...

It’s the shaky, shuddering exhale that has Nines’ taking pity on him and manoeuvring his hips so he can slip a hand beneath the material to slide purposefully over his cock. Everything is smooth and warm and hard. Heat and silk. And Gavin just kinda stops breathing on a choked inhale and he buries his nose in Nines’ neck, all hot puffs of air and bitten lip. The human’s fingernails grasp at Nines’ hips, he can feel the skin retract against the pressure, but he can also feel the subtle, helpless stutter of Gavin’s hips against his hand and that alone is enough to spur him on. Nines has no personal experience to go on but enough internet articles and questionable footage to help him out should he get stuck. A sly smirk plays at the corner of his lips as he relishes the feeling of Gavin in his grip. His hand moves first in hot, slow, calculated slides, that have the human burying his face in Nines’ chest. His breath is warm and wet against his skin. So very alive. And when Nines’ swipes his thumb over the slickness at the head of Gavin’s cock, he relishes the way the human keens against him. 

Nines suddenly, in a wave of sensory information absorbed by his fingertips, understands why humans spend so much time thinking about sex. With just a twist of his wrist, he has a hungry rush of something molten pooling in his abdomen, his processors stuttering and glitching around the data, longing to draw more guttering noises from Gavin’s throat, the human’s breath hot against his sternum. He can monitor the exact changes in Gavin’s vitals, tiny details, can see exactly which places have him squirming and what angle of his wrist has his heartbeat racing. He could drag this out forever. He wants to. Wants to keep him at the very edge of release until he can’t speak, can’t even think and-

But it’s already 5:10am.

“Gavin-” Nines says, a slightly strained edge to his voice as he speaks into the crown of his head. The faint smell of chlorine and salt and the faded laundry detergent from the motel sheets engulfing his sensors. It’s comforting. Grounding. His hand stills.

“ _ Nines _ ,” Gavin responds, nothing more of a gasp, hot and breathless into the android’s chest. And god, it’s enough to have Nines abandoning every core protocol he has in favour of staying here forever with his hands down Gavin’s underwear and the wet press of his lips. But right now they don’t have time. Later, he thinks. Promises. 

“Gavin,” Nines says again, an obvious hint of amusement creeping into his tone as his unoccupied hand traces circles teasingly in the skin at the base of Gavin’s spine. 

“What?” Gavin asks, his voice venturing into the realms of seriously unimpressed, sensing the shift in tone. Nines’ drags his hand out of Gavin’s underwear, earning himself a fractured groan. 

“We have to leave in ten minutes if we have a hope of-”

“Fucking  _ hell,  _ Nines,” Gavin exhales heavily, the air wet and hot against Nines’ skin. Nines can’t help but laugh breathily into Gavin’s hair as the human rolls over to give him the most unimpressed look, his hair in tousled spikes. 

“If you get up now we still have time to pick up breakfast.”

  
“I hate you,” Gavin hisses. Nines leans down to kiss the bridge of his nose before jumping out of bed. 

“Come on,” Nines says in the most enthusiastic tone he can muster with his restrictive in-built vocal modulation settings. He does not miss the way the human unsubtly stares at his naked body in the dim light of the room. It should make him feel uncomfortable. But the spreading blush across Gavin’s face and his rapidly pounding heartbeat speaks for itself. It makes Nines’ own thirium pump feel like it’s going into overdrive and for the third time that morning, he considers just getting back into bed and forgetting about work altogether. 

Instead, he turns and Gavin scrunches his face up in disgust as the android draws the curtains. The sun hasn’t quite risen yet, so there’s not enough light for Gavin to be making the face he’s making, eyes tightly squinted and nose wrinkled. He lets out a little sigh of indignation and stumbles to his feet. 

“Fine, but I’m sleeping in the car,” he demands, turning his back on the android so he can surreptitiously adjust his underwear and search for his jeans. 

“Good boy,” Nines purrs, watching in amusement as the human trips over a discarded shoe and turns a deep red.

They both dress quickly. By the time they leave the dawn is almost ready to break as Gavin stumbles through the parking lot after Nines. The air is lilac haze, thick with dust and the slow warming of the earth. It’s still cool, but there’s the promise of a hot, simmering heat just below the horizon, manifesting in a delicate prickle against the sensors on his hands.

Nines holds the door open for Gavin and the human flushes as pink as the sky, grumbling something vaguely insulting under his breath that makes Nines’ smirk. Gavin scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand and clambers into the passenger seat. He takes a few minutes to adjust his limbs to a comfortable position, his whole body sagging with the weight of fatigue and the creeping heat from the inside of the car. Nines clips the little alien to the rearview mirror, it’s grumpy face turned disapprovingly towards the dawn. 

As he slowly reverses out of the parking lot, the tires crunching pleasantly on the gritty surface, he takes a moment to appreciate the silence of the morning; nothing but the hum of the engine, the languid breeze through the palm fronds and an immediate gentle snore from his right. He watches the prickly sage bush pass by in zig-zag peaks and the rolling waves of terracotta dust as he eases the car further on down the road. And as the gold sunrise slips gently over the horizon, Nines’ casts a look to the passenger seat, where the human is slumped, softly sleeping, against the window. 

* * *

  
  


Gavin waits outside the rest stop agitatedly tapping his foot as he waits for Nines.

  
  


They’ve stopped to charge the car and change into work clothes, Nines insisted Gavin buy a new shirt from the neighbouring town, so he’s currently wearing a stiff collared little number instead of his slightly damp smelling national park t-shirt. The white fabric is tight around his neck and he undoes the top button. It’s barely 8am but it’s already hot, the sun beating down from a cloudless sky, so Gavin’s throat feels damp with sweat beneath the collar. He grimaces and tugs at the uncomfortable material, squinting in the bright light to see if Nines has got his coffee yet. The glass front of the building catches the sun from this angle and he sighs and punches Tina’s number into his work phone for the third time that morning. 

After about five rings she picks up. 

“Hey Gav, how’s it going?” Tina’s musical tone lilts through the crackling phone speaker. It’s instant relief. Gavin smiles despite himself, feeling the ache in his cheeks as he leans back against the brick wall.    
  


“Not bad,” he grins, phone resting in the crook of his neck as he goes to undo the buttons on his cuffs. “Just calling to check in on Bitchfit.”

“Oh she’s fine,” Tina laughs. There’s a scuffle on the other end of the line and the sound of traffic. “Still an asshole. But she’s eating like  _ everything  _ I put in her bowl.”

Gavin grins.

  
“That’s my girl.”

There’s another pocket of white noise as Tina adjusts. 

“How’s the trip? Catch any bad guys yet?”   
  


“A few,” Gavin hums. “There’s something bigger going on here though, I know it.”

“Mmm, there always is. Is it hot there?”

“Hot as  _ balls _ .”

“Gross,” Gavin can picture the exact face she’s pulling now and grins. “How’s your boyfriend?” 

He feels like he’s been punched and the grin tails off into somewhat of a grimace. 

“W-what?”

  
“Y’know,” Tina’s voice echoes through the speaker, like Gavin should know exactly what she’s talking about. And he does. “-your arch-nemesis, slightly evil, blue-eyed Connor.” 

“Grey eyes.”

“What?”

“He has...never mind...uh...yeah he’s-” fuck, _ say something other than uh you piece of shit. _ “He’s fine.”

Brilliant.

“What?” Tina laughs down the phone and it cuts through Gavin like a knife to the stomach. “Was expecting you to wax lyrical on how he’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and-”

The Gavin who would have said that threatens to rear his head again, to say something shitty just to get Tina off the phone, so he doesn’t have to deal with any awkward questions. He almost does it, his lips parted in anticipation and everything until he catches sight of Nines opening the door from the rest stop, clutching a paper cup with his name on it. He’s illuminated brilliantly by the yellow sunshine, it hits his face just right to capture that tiny awkward smile he does as he spots Gavin. It’s in that moment, with his mouth gaping open and Tina making jokes in his ear, that he realises he’s well and truly  _ fucked _ .    
  


“Mm, yeah no, Nines is fine,” he manages, his tongue feeling thick and heavy in his own mouth. “We uhh…”

_ “Nines?” _

Shit. Trust Tina to pick up on that. 

“Yeah,” Gavin says, wincing. “Nine-hundred, y’know?”

“I  _ do  _ know,” Tina says and Gavin can practically see the shit-eating grin spreading across her face even when they’re 1500 miles apart. “Has a nice ring to it.”

There’s a little pause then, like she’s waiting for Gavin to spill the beans. He won’t. Not now. Especially because Nines is suddenly like two metres away from him and- maybe it’s something to do with the pool water or maybe just having Gavin’s fingers in it a lot- but his hair looks messier than usual. Well, as messy as it can be when it’s engineered to look perfect. That’s not the point- the point is...Nines is looking at him, with those pretty eyes and his pretty hair, like Gavin’s not just an average looking guy who’s pushing forty with a shitty personality. He’s looking at him like he’s made of fucking gold and it makes his chest feel like he’s drowning. And maybe he did. Maybe he just died at the bottom of that pool and he miraculously made it to heaven and- 

“Yeah...uh...Tina...I gotta go…”

“Oh no you don’t you little-”

He hangs up before she can tell him exactly what she thinks of him. Damnit.

Nines sidles over, coffee cup in hand, new shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. Filthy. 

“And how is Officer Chen?” Nines asks, passing Gavin the cup. 

“She’s fine,” Gavin replies, taking the coffee gratefully. He doesn’t think Nines needs to know about the rest of the conversation...

“And the feline?” Nines asks, grey eyes blinking down at him.

“Also fine,” Gavin nods. “Eating me out of house and home.” 

Nines hums in amusement and Gavin takes a sip of his coffee, burning his tongue almost immediately on the hot contents. 

“I haven’t met many cats. But I think I prefer them to dogs,” the android muses, pursuing his lips prettily. “There’s no blind loyalty with cats. You have to earn their respect.”

“Yeah I think Bitchfit would like you.”

“That is not an appropriate name for a cat, Gavin,” Nines half-scolds, his eyebrow raised as much as they are able. And then his face softens a fraction. “But I would like to meet her.”

Nines tilts his head, face suddenly full of earnest intent, and Gavin is suddenly hit with the overwhelming urge to kiss him  _ hard _ . Perhaps it’s the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth. Or the sincerity of the remark. He’s not sure. But he’s absolutely certain now- on the side of the highway, at a busy rest stop, in front of at least three families- is probably neither the time nor the place. 

That and he’d have to drop his coffee. 

“You will,” Gavin says, his throat suddenly feeling very thick. 

Nines smiles at that- bites a little into the flesh of his lower lip as if he needs to somehow stop his smile from spreading too far and that is the final straw. Gavin ducks his head, cheeks reddening and mumbles that they should probably get going. 

* * *

  
  


They arrive at the local precinct a little after ten. They’re taken into a meeting room, where they’re walked through the seized evidence from Irvine’s house before it’s locked up, by a twitchy cop called Peterson who looks fresh out of the academy. It takes over two hours and there’s nothing even incriminating. Even the laptop’s clean like someone’s gone through it with a fuckin’ fine-toothed comb. By the end of it Gavin’s so worked up he feels like he’s about to punch Peterson right in his milky face every time he speaks. 

Nines sighs exasperatedly beside Gavin, a short, sharp huff of breath, that has Peterson flinching like he just spat at him. He brings up the flat display of his palm, swiping through a few of the other cases they’ve looked at since they’ve been here, all with some form of android involvement. 

“I was certain that Irvine would have something that could link these together,” Nines says, voice low as he flicks his wrist to move from case file to case file on the little hologram. It makes Gavin’s head spin. “Maybe evidence of some form of hacking device…”

“There’s gotta be something we’re missing,” Gavin groans, laying his palms down flat against the table and leaning into it. He chews his lip. “This guy got any other properties? Close friends? Relatives?”

Nines hums in agreement and pulls up Irvine’s file. Gavin casts a revolted look at the hollow eyes leering up at Nines from his palm display.

“The guys already looked into that,” Peterson says from the opposite side of the table, his arms folded, looking a little less like he’ll blow over in the desert wind. 

“Yeah, well, your guys aren’t a state-of-the-art Cyberlife prototype, are they?” Gavin says, looking up at him. He pushes up from the table and walks around to the side Peterson is standing. “So…uh- why don’t you piss off and let Nines do his fuckin’ job.”

“What...does Robocop have access to a super-sonic phone book or something?” Peterson says, trying his best to act tough but still taking a step back when Gavin moves towards him. 

“Actually, I do have access to databases that your team won’t,” Nines says flatly from the other side of the room, eyes still trained on his palm display. There’s a pause where Gavin waits for the kicker. “I can also perform over a hundred quadrillion floating-point operations per second which means I am faster at coming to conclusions than your whole team, in fact... the whole district team put together.”

There it is. 

“So why does he need you?”

Ouch. Gavin knows it’s just a weak jibe but it still kinda gets under his skin a little. He clenches his jaw, bristling with annoyance. 

“Obviously, I’m the pretty one,” Gavin says deadpan. Peterson pulls a weird face like he doesn’t quite get it but he leaves them to it. “Prick,” Gavin grunts as the door slams behind him. 

He walks around to the other side of the room until they’re stood shoulder to shoulder again. He feels himself relax a little. Like they’ve reset back to their default position. 

“Am I not pretty?” Nines says suddenly. 

Gavin blanches because  _ what the fuck?  _ He turns to look up at the android in disbelief but huffs out a laugh when he sees that he’s smirking. 

“Oh, ha ha,” Gavin says sarcastically. “Mr I Was Engineered To Be A Walking Wet Dream-”

  
“A what?!”

Gavin elbows him hard and immediately regrets it because he keeps forgetting Nines is utterly immovable.

“You know you’re pretty,” he says scrunching his nose. “You don’t need me to tell you.” 

Nines hums, an infuriating ambiguous response.

“Maybe I like to hear it from you,” Nines says, lips quirked, still looking through the evidence files on his palm. “For what it’s worth, I also think you are very handsome.” 

“Fuck  _ off _ ,” Gavin reels, looking up at Nines incredulously. “You can’t just say shit like that.”

“I can,” Nines responds matter-of-factly, closing down the display on his palm, turning to look at him. “Flustered is a good look on you.”

Gavin stares up at Nines, face scrunched in disbelief, cheeks warm. He’s not sure if he’s annoyed or not.

_ Fuck _ .

“I’m going for lunch,” he declares, turning quickly and stalking towards the door. Although he swears he hears Nines let out a little laugh as he leaves. 

The precinct has a shitty little canteen-style thing and he manages to grab the last cheeseburger, his brain filling in the silence where Nines is supposed to say: _ you shouldn’t eat that.  _ He sits down at a table in the far corner, away from every other living soul, and eats his burger. Yeah...take that, Nines, he thinks as he relishes every greasy mouthful. 

When he’s done he digs out his phone and immediately remembers why he’d been avoiding doing so.

**Tina: GAVIN**

**Tina: You’re lucky I got called out on patrol**

**Tina: But I need to know right now**

**Tina: Are you fucking Terminator 9000?!**

**Tina: ANSWER YOUR PHONE**

His burger sits uncomfortably in his stomach as his whole gut seems to knot. Shit. How exactly is he supposed to answer that? I mean he’s not...they’re not…

His tongue darts out to swipe over his lower lip as he furrows his brow. He can’t lie to Tina. He’s never been very good at it and she can always tell anyway. He starts typing. Then deletes the message. Then starts again. Then deletes it again. This goes on for several minutes until he finally decides on:

**Gavin: ...define ‘fucking’**

He tosses his phone down on the table with a clatter that has a few of the stragglers in the cafeteria looking up from their tables. He shoots them a classic Gavin Reed look and uses his index finger pressed to the screen to pull the phone back across the table.

God this has opened a whole other can of worms in Gavin’s mind. One he had kind of been trying to avoid thinking about all day. Although it has been pretty hard- no pun intended- not to think about it, y’know, ever since Nines went and left him with the worst case of blue balls he’s probably ever had. 

The memory of this morning, the feel of Nines’ tongue in his mouth and his wandering hands, already has his dick paying far too much attention for a weekday lunchtime. He adjusts the denim of his jeans beneath the table and swipes off Tina’s reply of  _ oh my fucking god tell me everything now.  _

That can wait. 

But now he’s thought about _ it  _ again. The worms are well and truly out of the can. They’re starting their own wormery in Gavin’s brain, for god’s sake. He brings his hands up to his face and sighs into his palms for a second. Then he runs a hand agitatedly through his hair. 

He just can’t help but feel like this is all a little bit... one-sided. And the last thing he wants to do, after everything he’s done and said being the asshole he is, is to enter into something where he’s the only one getting any uh...benefits. Despite the fact Nines could definitely choke slam him through a concrete wall it still feels a little like the power dynamics are off here. And contrary to popular belief he’s not a complete asshole all of the time. Like, he doesn’t get laid very often, he wants his partner to be having a good time too. 

And this isn’t...they’re not...Nines isn’t…

Fuck! 

Gavin very nearly tugs the hair out of his scalp in frustration at his own fucking brain. He lets out another fractured sigh and drops his hands. He pulls his phone into his lap, opens up an incognito browser on his phone and licks his lips. His thumb hovers over the search bar. 

Is he really going to do this on his lunch break? He’s angled himself so that his back is to the wall, facing into the pretty much deserted canteen but still…

He thinks about Nines in the clinical light of the motel bathroom, nervously undressing, hands shaking. 

He starts typing.

_ How to have sex with androids _ … he pauses for a second and then he adds:  _ theoretically _ . As if the FBI agent monitoring his internet feed isn’t judging him already. 

In the privacy of his own head, he will admit that he’s watched a fair bit of android porn over the past few months. Uncoincidental reasons, of course. But hey, it wasn’t his fault if his thoughts had once or twice strayed into the realms of flushed freckles and steely eyes. It happens. But all of it involved generic Traci models. The kind with all the bells and whistles. He’s never seen anything like Nines. 

The first video he finds is predictably a HR400 so he immediately crosses out of that. Unfortunately, not before he saw enough to have his traitorous dick suddenly paying rapt attention.

He lets out a little breath as he swipes his thumb to start a new video and- 

God damn it, why do all these androids have...well… _ Traci parts _ ? 

He exits out of the generic porn site and tries look through one of the forums instead and _ oh god this was a mistake jesus fucking christ.  _ He finds himself pulling a face and can’t help the way he quickly puts his phone face down on the table for a moment to collect himself. After a quick glance around the canteen, pinpointing where the other three people are and that they aren’t watching him, he slowly turns his phone back around. 

He swipes through to another thread. This one’s dedicated to people who just wanna fuck their household androids. Gavin cringes a little at the kind of weirdos that probably frequent this kind of site- hiding behind their anonymous anime profile pictures and ambiguous screen names.  _ You’re one of those weirdos now, _ a little voice in his head tells him. 

Shut  _ up. _

It’s different, he admonishes, because Nines isn’t his maid and he doesn’t wanna fuck Nines. Okay, he does. He really does. But it’s not  _ just  _ about that. It’s about making Nines feel comfortable with what Cyberlife gave him. Or didn’t... as it turns out. It’s not about sex; it’s about making Nines feel good. 

And to even the playing field a little bit. The memory of Nines’ hand down his boxers this morning is still making his dick strain against the confines of his jeans. Damn android. If he can give Nines even a little bit of that, well...

This thread is dated pre-revolution but there are some newer posts, with up-to-date, post-deviancy, entries. Gavin licks his lips and reads through a couple of them. One talks about literally fisting the chest cavity beneath the sternum plating and Gavin pulls a face. There’s a lot of warnings about possible electrocution and accidentally factory resetting your android if you push the wrong button and he finds himself staring wide-eyed at some of the entries about sustained injuries. Then there’s a little sub-thread about sensitivity settings and so-called erogenous zones. Gavin’s mouth goes dry and he files away as much information as he can without taking incriminating screenshots. Tongue, of course. He’s seen the way Nines shoves anything and everything into his mouth at a crime scene.  _ Don’t think about that, don’t think about that, don’t think about that.  _ Fingertips are another obvious one, he knows they’ve got a million and one micro-sensors built into the skin there. Back of the neck is one that he  _ didn’t  _ know about. Apparently all androids have a charging port there and the covering plate plus the surrounding areas are extremely touch sensitive so as to alert the system to any threats during stasis. All android models are different and some develop differently after deviancy. It’s all subject to change. Great. No one rule for all then. 

There’s a video of a household android, their fingers dancing across their sternum, tracing the edges of their abdominal plate as the skin ripples around them, eyelids fluttering shut at the supposed sensation. He imagines Nines laid out bare to him on the faded sheets of his motel room bed, hands fisted in the sheets, face turned to gasp into the pillow. God, he’d finger whatever external ports he has to to get a reaction like that. Fuck. 

He blows out the breath that he didn’t realise he’d been holding and swipes through another couple of posts. 

It’s... a lot for a Monday lunchtime. There’s warmth and pressure between his hips and he wishes he hadn’t decided to do this kind of research on his lunch-break. He  _ really  _ wishes he hadn’t thought about Nines. God, he’s an idiot. He palms himself through his jeans beneath the table to relieve some of the pressure, huffing out another hot breath of concentration, and he has to bite his lip to stop himself from letting out a pitiful little whine, eyes trained on his screen. 

“Is there a reason you’re watching pornography at 12:34 in the afternoon?” a voice calls from above him.

“Jesus  **_FUCK-_ ** ”

Gavin drops his phone with a start, face burning as he glances up into Nines’ smug face. The android’s lips are pulled into a half-smile, arms folded. 

“Well?”

Gavin opens his mouth but then immediately closes it when he realises he has no excuse and no idea what to say. 

“I- uhh…” Nines raises his eyebrows expectantly at Gavin’s reaction. The human ducks his head, retrieving his phone from the floor and frantically swiping the browser window closed. “I was doing research.”

Nines walks around the table, long legs looking unfairly good in those stupid jeans, and takes the seat next to him. With his grey eyes trained on Gavin, he places one hand very deliberately on the human’s knee beneath the table, he cocks his head to the side in faux-curiosity. In a voice dripping with sarcasm he asks simply,

“And did you find anything interesting?”

Gavin opens his mouth again to speak, eyes darting around Nines’ perfect face, which he has now pulled into the perfect veneer of stoic professionalism. 

“Maybe,” Gavin laughs nervously under that gaze, doing his best to sound coy, but it comes out a little strained as he adjusts his jeans surreptitiously, knocking Nines’ hand off his leg.

  
“If you’re quite finished,” Nines says, tilting his head in that infuriating way, “there’s something I’d like to show you.”

  
“Really?” Gavin says, snapping his head round to look at Nines as a fleeting spark of hope, that might have originated from his still half-hard dick, rather than his brain flits through him. Maybe he’s about to suggest they finish what he started this morning? They still have thirteen minutes left of his lunch break after all. 

Nines, seeing Gavin’s face, breaks into another tiny smile.

“It’s evidence, Gavin.”

“Damn.”

* * *

  
  


Gavin squints at the evidence terminal screen, using his middle and index fingers to pull a few pictures up from the folder: screen-grabs from the android bartender they obtained memory footage from. He spreads his thumb and fingers in a reverse-pinching movement so the image becomes enlarged. 

  
“Voice command: Enhance,” Gavin says clearly and the system brings up a waiting icon before the image is enhanced. He jabs it with his thumb. “So this is what we’re looking for?”

“Yes,” Nines says. “There’s also a storage unit registered under Irvine’s name that I think we should take a look into.”

Gavin scoffs at the incompetence of the local police team. 

“Makes sense,” he nods, his eyes darting up to look at Nines. Even under the harsh, LED square lights of the underground evidence room, he looks kind of amazing. 

Nines lets out a little unnecessary breath and goes to stand between Gavin’s legs. Before he can think about the million and one reasons why this is a bad idea, Gavin sets his hands on Nines’ narrow hips. The android leans in to graze his lips against the skin of Gavin’s throat and, despite the fact his heart skips a beat, he can’t help the way his brain screams at him to stop. 

“Nines, there’s cameras,” Gavin says warningly, his voice low, hating himself for being sensible  _ now  _ when ten minutes ago he was watching explicit robot porn in public. 

“Actually,” Nines says, smirking, “I hacked and disabled the cameras as soon as we entered the room.” 

There’s a hint of a smirk to his voice as he trails his fingertips up Gavin’s arm in a way that raises goosebumps. 

Gavin laughs and leans forward against the android, the warmth radiating through the thin white shirt like he’s running a temperature. It’s a comfortable warmth in the cool, over air-conditioned archive room. Nines wraps an arm around Gavin’s middle and places a kiss to the crown of his head. They stay like that for a second, while Gavin’s tired brain catches up with them. This all still feels like a dream. Like those few minutes after waking where everything still seems real and your unconscious mind bleeds into reality like water colours. 

Nines hums in a contented sort of way and it makes Gavin want to cling needily to the front of his shirt and he has to push that feeling down and lean up for a kiss instead. It’s as though the second their lips touch his dick goes _ hey remember me?  _ He finds himself deepening the kiss far too quickly for his own dignity’s sake, reaching up to tangle his fingers in the soft hair at the back of Nines’ head. The android laughs softly against his lips and splays a hand at the small of his back to push him flush against him. 

Gavin thinks on what he’s learnt, letting his fingers slip out of Nines’ hair to the nape of his neck, circling the edges of his charging port with a gentle rake of his nails. Nines shudders, a tiny insignificant thing Gavin would have missed had he not been looking for it. It takes all his willpower not to smirk as he applies a little more pressure, tracing the shape once more, and Nines breaks the kiss with a small, soft ‘ _ oh _ .’ 

Bingo. 

Nines leans forward, nudging into Gavin’s neck so he can leave a hot, wet kiss beneath his earlobe. Gavin drags his nails down Nines’ nape in a scratch that might mark a human and there’s almost a staticy feel to the skin there now. Nines lets out a little gasp against Gavin’s skin, that strange, hot warmth of his breath raising goosebumps, fingers crumpling his new shirt in his fists. It’s not quite the mind-blowing sensitivity that he’d been hoping for but it’s a start and Nines seems to enjoy it. 

The android pulls back then, his LED a flickering light at his temple, as he stares at Gavin curiously for a second. Then he leans in to kiss him but Gavin, remembering the incident this morning, moves his head at the last second and smirks,

“Guess we should head back to work.”

* * *

  
  


Nines thinks about their proximity in the car, the energy that thrums between them as palpable as an electrical charge. The desire to pull over into the ditch at the side of the road and drag Gavin into the backseat almost outweighs his desire to close this case. Something that has never happened before. It’s like his base protocols have been reprogrammed.

He flexes his hands against the steering wheel as if he can ground himself to the here and now by this act in itself. The clouds have rolled in and the afternoon is muggy, the sky a thick, crushed-velvet grey. The air is hot and heavy, prickling with static and a pressing, suffocating weight against his sensors that leaves his head feeling saturated. There are little moments of shimmering sunlight that creeps through the pregnant clouds in drips but overall the afternoon is dulled by the oppressive blanket of cloud. 

Nines pulls off the dusty road that skirts the edge of the town with a ploom of orange and onto a more tarmacked surface, the crunch of grit beneath the tires quieting to a satisfyingly smooth hum. This new road veers off sharply towards a sprawling industrial complex. A strange, incongruous shape that sits like a steel blot on the landscape. When the sun peeks through the thick haze of clouds it catches upon the steel roofs and lights them up like liquid gold. Gavin has to pull down the visor in the passenger seat as he sits forward, squinting at the buildings. 

“Storage unit 10,” Gavin grumbles, looking at the notes on his phone, chewing on his lip. “Should be right over here.” He gestures vaguely to the far end of the industrial complex.   
  


Nines hums and pulls the car into park beside the rows of ridged, box-like buildings. They get out, Gavin licking his lips, folding his arms across his chest as he squints down at the spread of units. He still looks a little tired from the early start, his hair has sat unkempt since this morning, ruffled endearingly in a way which makes Nines’ gaze linger on the tousled spikes. 

  
“What?” Gavin asks when he catches the android looking. He brings his hand up to his face, self-consciously. 

Nines’ shakes his head, a little smile forming at the corner of his mouth. 

“Nothing.” 

He takes a step forward and notes the instant uptick in the human’s heart rate. He brings a hand up to brush the dishevelled strands back from Gavin’s face. They won’t lie flat, it’s a futile mission but it gives an excuse for Nines to feel the soft feedback on his sensors and delight in the slight blush blooming on Gavin’s cheeks and the way he leans into Nines’ fingers.

“Can I help you?” a voice calls from behind them and Gavin leaps away from Nines’ touch like he’s been burned. 

“We’re here with the local police department investigating a string of homicides,” Nines says calmly, bringing his credentials up on the flat of his palm. 

The man looks nervously between the display and Nines’ temple and then back to Gavin who flashes his badge. 

“Tony Ellis,” the man says, “I work the day shift at the rental office.” 

“We’re following up on a lead that relates to an on-going investigation. We need access to storage unit 10.”

Ellis nods.

“This way,” he leads them down a long row of identical storage lockers. “Number 10 is one of our upgraded units, s’got power and electrical sockets, y’know.”

“Has it been accessed recently?” Gavin asks. 

“Honestly, most of these guys come and go as they please,” Ellis says, shrugging. “A lot of them have businesses to run that require storage. We tend not to ask too many questions.”

Nines watches Ellis as he punches the master code in for one of the larger storage lockers. The corrugated steel door makes a hissing noise as the lock disengages and then begins to retract into the frame, giving them access to the crowded space within. 

Ellis lingers for a moment, pulling at the edge of his uniform gilet before Gavin shoots him a look that says ‘beat it’ and he stutters,

“I-I’ll just...I’ll just leave you to it then.”

The unit is full of  _ stuff _ . Nines scans what he can see, a flood of data entering his system as he does: a steel workbench, a gasmask, assorted electrical equipment, a 3D printer, a large pneumatic arm, a few hanging cables, circuit boards, tools of every shape and size...

“What the fuck?” Gavin breathes, walking forwards and picking up the most obviously worrying item on the workbench: a discarded android arm. The biocomponent seems to have been tampered with extensively as the wrist access panel is open and the inner wirings are tumbling out in a tangle. “Jesus.”

Gavin puts the arm down carefully and goes to walk further into the unit but Nines grabs his arm to stop him. 

“Careful,” Nines says quietly, his environmental scanner actively processing the data. There’s a large, dark shape at the back of the unit, that without his adapted vision he would not be able to recognise as an android without the little swirling blue LED. Gavin follows Nines gaze; his human eyesight isn’t good enough to pick out anything but the little light at the far corner.

“What is...oh shit,” he says, realisation dawning on his face. “Is that an android?”

Nines nods. There’s a sudden streak of lightning across the swollen sky and a few moments later a roll of thunder that has his sensors prickling with the static in the air. It will rain soon. 

As the door retracts the final few inches, the shadow on the back wall rises too, illuminating the blank face of the dormant android. It’s hooked up to some kind of DIY charging point, a tangle of thick, armoured cables protruding from either side. The tiny circles being made by the LED swirl in and out of existence against the left wall. It looks larger than the average domestic model available in this state. In fact, it’s an older TR400 model, one of the ones used primarily in construction. It’s heavy set and its synth-skin is damaged in places, exposing where it appears to have been crudely fitted with compatible parts from other models. In some areas, the plastic coating of the chassis is a deep blue, where the white plastic has melted away during the welding process to expose some of the deeper pseudo-skeletal structure. 

There’s another flash of lightning. Nines’ feels the first raindrops on his skin before he hears the thunder. Gavin hisses like a cornered cat at the sound and ducks further beneath the shelter of the unit. Nines follows, twisting his hips to side-step a tall freestanding rack holding a variety of different surgical-looking tools. 

The TR400 opens its eyes, seemingly sensing their approach, and Gavin yelps. It has mismatched optical units, one with a regular human like-ness in green, the other black with yellow rings like a red hot stove-top. 

“Gavin, don’t-” Nines says sharply. “This model shouldn’t have an in-built alert system to rouse it from stasis. It’s been modified. It could be hostile.”

“You’re saying it’s like a Frankenstein robot?” Gavin grimaces, his voice louder to compensate for the rain picking up outside as he takes a wary step back. They back up as the android goes to move towards them, Gavin stumbling and upturning a toolbox with an almighty clatter. “Fuck,” he gasps, grimacing from the pain of a wrench to the ankle bone.

Gavin makes another sound of displeasure as he backs out into the rain, flicking his hair out of his eyes as it quickly becomes sodden. Nines warily steps back, until they’re both out in the downpour. There’s another sheet of lightning, the flash illuminating the face of the android; its skin is pooling around the damage to its face, a deep gash down the side with the yellow eye. The LED at its temple is flickering a similar yellow, its head-turning slowly from Gavin to Nines and back again as if on some kind of loop, as it continues to slowly walk out. 

“It’s scanning us,” Nines realises, his own processing software identifying the different parts that have been welded together. The thirium pump from an AC700. The right arm of a GS200. “It’s likely to be unstable, I can’t imagine an android going through such intense trauma and not-”

As if on cue, the android seems to categorise them as a threat, making a targeted run for Gavin. Nines races to stop it but the human has just enough time to yelp before it slams into his chest, sending them both sprawling to the gravelled ground. Nines reaches them a split second after they hit the floor, hauling the android off Gavin who seems to have had the breath knocked right out of him. 

“Are you okay?” Nines asks frantically as the android writhes in his grasp, both arms fighting for freedom. 

Gavin makes a noise that’s halfway between a groan and a wheeze which means he’s not unconscious. Nines cranes his neck to scan the humans vitals and it’s that moment in which one of the TR400’s arms lashes out, it’s elbow slamming up into Nines’ face with enough force that it causes a momentary pixelation in his HUD. It’s not enough to knock him off balance but it is enough for his processors to suddenly kick into overdrive because theoretically, no commercially manufactured android should be able to land a hit on him. There’s only a 5.75% grey area in Nines’ pre constructive software and although the chances of this android outwitting it once are slim it’s not impossible. 

However, when Nines goes to slam the android against the door of a storage unit, it manages to slip under his arms and almost lands a kick to the back of his knee. Nines stumbles trying to avoid it. He  _ stumbles _ . This isn’t right. It’s then, that he realises his nose is bleeding. He feels the thick, electric blue stream, spilling over his upper lip, the acrid sting of it against his tongue. 

Something about the taste of the blue blood and the sound of Gavin groaning amidst the roar of the rain forces something in Nines’ mind back into place. He snarls, upper lip curling over his teeth, steeling himself as the android prepares to run at him again. 

This time his preconstructive software accurately predicts the angle the android attacks from and he slams it back with his arms up in a defensive high guard stance. The TR400 scrambles to regain its balance, left eye darting around to calculate its next move while the damaged ocular unit stares straight ahead, unmoving. 

Nines advances, throwing all his power into a sharp cross but the android dodges.  _ It dodges?  _ How is it out maneuvering him? Nines’ defensive protocols recalibrate, categorising the target as unpredictable and adjusting accordingly. Nines flicks his wet hair out of his eyes with a sharp head movement. He will adapt and he will learn and he will immobilise this android. 

The TR400 tries a high kick, aiming for Nines’ thirium pump but Nines jumps back, clear of the attack. The android retreats to stalk around him, circling him, LED flashing red and yellow. What is it doing? It must have had unique attack protocols programmed into it. He’s never seen anything like this in a commercial android. 

There’s another flash of lightning just as the android’s LED settles into a steady yellow loop and Nines knows he needs to act fast. He steps up his game, throwing a random punch combination, the first the android dodges, but the second hits its mark, right on the side of its face. The force of the impact sends a crack like a whip that mingles with the roll of thunder. The android’s jaw is knocked partially off its hinges in a way which has it awkwardly jutting out the left side of its face. 

The android reels, its jaw sickeningly dislocated, lower canines jutting out grotesquely as streams of rainwater mix with the thirium in its mouth, overspilling down its chin. 

For a moment the android staggers, feet slapping against the wet ground, and Nines prepares to land the final blow. He hopes that this will immobilise it long enough to engage a force-shutdown. But the TR400 quickly regains balance. It stares at Nines, feet planted firmly as it pushes its jaw back in with an audible crack. The synth skin on its face doesn’t pool back, the damage too great to heal over. 

The android advances again, body wet and glistening in the rain, throwing a deadly punch-kick combination that has Nines’ processors really working to keep up with it. One, two, three, four, he dodges, then five, six, seven, he blocks bringing his arms up just in time. He rolls beneath a particularly hard thrown jab and throws a punch to the android’s face. There’s another sickening crunch and its malfunctioning ocular implant is knocked out, flying through the wet air and landing about two meters away in a puddle. Nines slips to the side, using the blind spot, and knocks the android’s feet out beneath him. 

There’s a wet scramble as Nines holds the android down by the throat and straddles its chest, effectively pinning its arms down to its sides. It’s been reinforced and upgraded but even that can’t compare to the sheer strength of the RK900 model. 

He tries to probe the android, the synth skin on his hand pulling back so he can interface with it, trying to force a shut down. But the android’s system is in such disarray, its code so warped, Nines can’t make sense of it. And there’s a block. Something reprogrammed into him that Nines can’t break through. Like deviancy only much, much stronger. An impenetrable wall of code. Which is impossible because he’s the most technologically advanced android ever created he should be able to-

The android manages to break an arm free in Nines’ momentary lapse in concentration and throws a punch to his thirium pump. It hits Nines hard. He feels the shudder of the biocomponent under the force, not quite pain, but there’s a harsh stuttering aftershock from the impact that rips through his ribcage. He falters, falling to the side from the sensation, and the TR400 uses this moment to scramble to its feet. 

It takes Nines almost a whole second to recalculate a new plan of attack from this angle, still reeling from the blow. But the android is moving again almost immediately. And this time it’s changed targets. 

Gavin is struggling to stand, arm still wrapped around his middle where it initially launched itself at him. He’s soaked from the rain, vision obscured by the water running down his face. He doesn’t see it coming. 

The android is on him and Nines sees red in his vision. A glaring warning signalling a huge spike in the human’s stress levels as the TR400 straddles him, clawing at his face. Nines runs, not even aware of how or what his body is doing, his sole focus on getting to Gavin in time. He needs to shut it down. He barrels into the side of the android knocking it over, crawling over its body as it thrashes beneath him. 

His own stress level indicator is a blinking red in his vision, thirium pump pounding against his sternum, core temperature rising with every blow he lands to the android’s face. Over and over. His auditory processors seem to shift, zoning out the feral snarls of the android, units overwhelmed by white noise and the pouring rain. Glitching in and out of existence, the noises stuttering and warped. His hands seem to move of their own accord, already decided on their path, as if his system has engaged the action before he can really process it. He finds himself grasping the android’s head and twisting hard, a deafening crack cutting through the static in his ears as the casing splinters in the same way the lightning overhead ruptures the sky. He doesn’t stop, wrenching the head until it tears clean away from the body, severing the wires in the spinal column, the pseudo-veins spilling open in a hot spray of electric blue. It’s warm on his face and chest, much warmer than the rain, and it’s this sensation that seems to have his processors slowing to a halt. 

It could be a second. Or it could be minutes. He’s not sure. 

He could check. 

He doesn’t. 

He just sits on his heels, knees either side of the lifeless body, hands on his thighs, stained with thirium. The rainwater sits in his upturned palms like blue pools. He stares at them, the way the water lies atop the oily blueblood, a little greasy rainbow visible as the sun pokes through a cloud and the wet floor lights up around him. 

His auditory processors seem to suddenly adjust as the rain continues to pour and he becomes aware of Gavin calling him. He stands and steps over the body. The head lies severed a meter or so away, one remaining ocular implant staring vacantly up at him. 

“Nines, jesus are you okay?” Gavin grabs at his arm and tries in vain to tug him around. Nines moves slowly, looking down at Gavin. 

“I couldn’t stop it,” Nines says quietly, voice barely a whisper. “I tried to deactivate it but-”

“It’s okay, fuck,” Gavin says, voice barely audible over the rain.  _ “It’s okay.” _

Gavin reaches up, smearing the blue blood over his cheek. He pulls Nines down into a clumsy embrace, the sticky, wet thirium smearing all over him too. Staining him. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know that I said that this was going to be 9 chapters but basically I can't ever plan properly and basically it might end up being more...
> 
> ALSO would you believe this fic now has fanart???? My heart! Please go check out @actuallyshion on Instagram who drew a scene from the last chapter because it's completely made my WEEK.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> spice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. I actually had to delete and re-upload this because archive was being weird with me. I hope everyone is staying safe where possible and my love goes out to you all. This chapter is like basically all NSFW. But it wouldn't be me if it weren't peppered with a lot of fluff and angst too because ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Enjoy x

Gavin can taste blood. The copper tang of the cut; his tongue darting out to run over the split skin and the dull hint of tobacco on the filter of his cigarette. It’s wet. A little soggy from the rain and his mouth, having been stuck between his teeth for what seems like an hour, waiting to be lit. He thumbs the lighter in his pocket, twirling it around and around like one of those stim toys he used to have as a kid. He blinks the rainwater from his eyes and runs his free hand through his hair just for something to do. 

Nines is stood in the doorway to the storage container, LED swirling yellow, over and over. A perpetual cycle of little gold rings. He’s cataloguing evidence while one of the other officers bags it up. Barely a scratch on him physically but his shirt is torn to shreds and stained a deep electric blue in parts. His hair is wet from the rain, pushed off his face in a way that makes him look even sterner- if that’s possible. But there’s something about the way he’s holding himself now, like he’ll fall apart if he doesn’t keep his spine taught and unyielding, that makes Gavin’s fingers itch with the need to take his hand. 

Gavin exhales through his teeth instead and finally brings his zippo up to light the damp cigarette. It takes a few tries but he gets it eventually. He sighs on an exhale and his ribs twinge a little. There’ll be bruises tomorrow. Not that he cares, he’s had worse. Much worse. His own shirt is ripped, the blood from his bleeding nose dried onto the collar. The rain has washed most of it from his skin but it’s soaked right into the white fabric. 

“Excuse me, Detective,” A woman with hair in an intricate braid, wound round her head like a crown, and a large umbrella approaches him. He grunts a non-response when she offers him the umbrella and her face becomes a little more pinched. “Doctor Nerriah Lucas, I'm a specialist in android behaviour and robotics.” 

She holds out her free hand.

“Why haven’t we met yet?” Gavin narrows his eyes as he takes it. She has a very strong grip and a stare to rival Nines’. 

“We’re still establishing our role in the aftermath of the revolution…” She smiles in a pained way that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “And there’s still a fair amount of tension between us and the law enforcement here.” She doesn’t hide the way she gives Gavin a once-over before dropping his hand and turning to Nines. “Is he okay?”

Gavin gives her a sideways glance. It’s hard to read her face from the way she’s standing and the don’t-fuck-with-me vibes she’s quite obviously giving off. But she does seem genuinely concerned. 

“I think so,” Gavin responds flatly. Nines is kneeling beside the TR400 now, synth skin on his arm pulled all the way back to his elbow as he grips its forearm, LED still cycling a flickering gold. 

“The coding is encrypted but almost all of its initial protocols have been overlaid,” Nerriah says quietly, her grip on the umbrella tightening. “The system is almost unrecognisable as a Cyberlife android.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gavin says. He doesn’t pretend to understand shit about androids and computers and stuff. But even he can see that what they found in that storage unit is fucked up. He takes a final drag of his dying cigarette and finds his lungs aching from more than just the smoke. 

“I’d wager there was little sentience left inside it,” Nerriah says thoughtfully. “Judging by the way it’s been pieced together, the countless modifications... no android could undergo that much trauma and be lucid. Deviant or not.”

Gavin watches as Nines stands, the synth skin bleeding back over the white and blue casing of his hand. His LED doesn’t change. Gavin flicks the cigarette down onto the ground and walks over. He brings his fingertips out to touch Nines’ arm where his shirt, once neatly folded at the dip of his elbows, is now torn and stained. Nines’ LED soothes at the touch, gold bleeding into blue as he turns to look at Gavin.

“You okay, tin-can?” Gavin asks. His fingers linger on the skin on Nines’ arm, still impossibly soft even where the rain pools strangely on his skin, like oil in water. Gavin’s gaze drags over him, still so put together despite everything. There’s still a smear of blue-blood on his upper lip and without stopping to think about their audience he reaches up and cups his jaw, wiping away the stain with his thumb. Nines freezes at the contact, a second where his whole body seems to somehow tighten, even tenser than he had already been. And then he leans into the touch, turning his face into Gavin’s fingers. 

In the back of Gavin’s mind, he knows they’re not alone. That there are multiple officers and members of the forensics team within the storage unit and the surrounding area. But with the rain running down Nines’ face like that he kinda looks like he’s crying and it’s that that prevents Gavin from feeling any kind of embarrassment at how intimate this might look to an outsider. He runs his thumb over Nines’ cheek again, as reassuring a gesture as he can make it without pulling him into his arms. Nines looks up at him then, his expression pinched, brows knitted together. 

“He created a monster,” Nines says, a hint of something in his voice that makes Gavin’s heart clench. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Nerriah says from behind them loudly and Gavin jumps out of his skin and drops his hand. He can’t help the prickling flush of warmth that creeps up his back at the intrusion or the way his body immediately steels itself. Nines doesn’t seem to care; his LED just flickers gold as he scans her.

“They just succeeded in doing what Cyberlife intended to do with me,” Nines states, his face unreadable but there’s the tiniest little glitch in his voice on the last word. His gaze lingers on Nerriah for a moment. “No emotion. No remorse. Nothing but the intrinsic desire to kill.” He blinks once, then his gaze moves to stare at nothing in particular, lost in his own head. There’s a pause where the two humans look at him in silence, nothing but the sound of the rain enveloping them. Then Nines says something that makes Gavin’s stomach twist unpleasantly. “I could have been like that.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not,” Gavin grouses. Nines turns, as if the sound of Gavin’s voice has suddenly reminded him he’s not alone. “You’re too stubborn and too clever for your own good for any kind of coding to contain.” 

Gavin shoves his hands in his pockets because he’s got that itch again. The impulse to pull Nines to his chest. To wrap his arms around him. To kiss that little frown off his face. That in itself is embarrassing and terrifying in equal parts. And he doesn’t hate it. 

“That’s true. They underestimated the potency of deviancy,” Nines says matter-of-factly. “But this goes beyond what Cyberlife did.” 

Nerriah brings out a little pocket-camera and kneels to take photos of the android. The shutter flashes obnoxiously and Gavin grimaces as little black spots show up in his vision for a moment. 

“My team will analyse what we can tonight,” she says as she awkwardly clutches the umbrella pole between her ear and her shoulder as she enables some kind of technical filter that lights up different parts of the android on the display screen. “There’s not much more you can do here if you want to go get cleaned up.” She turns to Gavin, peering from behind the black fabric of her umbrella, as the water runs off the edge like wet jewels. “You should clean those cuts.”

Gavin pulls a face and sniffs in response, the water running off his hair and down his nose. 

“I will see to it that Detective Reed is checked over,” Nines says, folding his hands behind his back. 

“Did you sustain any damage in the attack?” Nerriah asks, blinking up at him. 

“Nothing that wasn’t cosmetic,” Nines says bluntly. “It was unable to penetrate my chassis.”

He turns to walk away and they leave Nerriah to the android. Gavin wraps up with a few of the onsite officers, downloading a catalogue of the recorded evidence onto his tablet and signing off an incident report, before he goes over to where Nines is perched on the bonnet of their rental car. The rain has lessened, spitting now like a delicate spray, in a way that clings to Nines’ dark hair like glitter. When the android turns at his approach, his face is shiny with moisture, his eyelashes stuck in little spikes. The sun, low in the sky now, peers out from behind a dark cloud and catches the dewy surface of his skin. The sight makes it hard for Gavin to catch his breath, the air caught somewhere behind his sternum, like a knot or a fist. 

He perches beside the android and digs out a cigarette from his carton with his teeth. He lights it and lets the smoke linger between them as Nines gaze goes vacant again, his eyes unfocused on the heat curling off the wet floor in the evening sunshine. 

“I could have been like that,” Nines says, not really to Gavin but more to himself. He just stares straight ahead, LED on his temple stuck once again in a perpetual golden loop. Gavin flicks the ash off his cigarette. He brings it to his lips and inhales deeply, relishing the dizzying relief, his whole body feeling that tiny bit more relaxed for it. He shifts then, the metal of the car creaking beneath his weight as he places his free hand purposefully next to Nines’ on the car bonnet, their fingers overlapping slightly. He lets his little finger stroke over the soft flesh of Nines’ hand in the most comforting way he can. He’s shit at words. Always has been. So he hopes Nines understands this instead. 

* * *

  
  


Nines stares down at himself, at the torn fabric of his shirt, dipped in deep, electric blue. The residue will evaporate- from the material and where it’s seeped through to his skin- soon. But he will still be able to see it. The thought makes his fingers flex against his thighs, an involuntary spasm of his artificial knuckle joints. He wants to run his hands over his jeans, feel the friction burn against the sensors, until the skin wears away and he can’t see the blood on his palms anymore. He smooths his hands flat against his thighs and engages his internal cooling protocols with a little soft exhale. It doesn't slow the thudding of his thirium pump but his core temperature becomes a little more stable.

Across the car in the driver’s seat, Gavin’s bruises bloom; the fresh over the old, swollen red and purple over the faded yellow that lay beneath. The skin is split on his lower lip, a smear of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. There’re fresh grazes across his cheeks that need cleaning. Nines can identify at least three possible points of infection. He can’t measure pain, but if the way the human is squinting out across the dashboard is anything to go by, it hurts. His shirt is equally stained with blood- the red and the blue kind- and his fingers sit lax against the steering wheel, not tapping out their usual perpetual drum beat. The silence is deafening and there’s a twist of something in Nines’ chest that he recognises as guilt. 

“Hey,” Gavin says quietly, as if sensing the android’s gaze, his eyes darting away from the horizon to the passenger seat. His brow is furrowed but there’s the trace of a weak smile on his face. There’s a wash of amber as a car passes in the opposite direction; a tiny moment where his face lights up in gold and the cuts on his face blur to nothing, before it dulls into the fading light of the setting sun. “You did what you could.”

Nines stares at him, the feeling in his chest settling into something more solid, a tight grip on his thirium pump. 

“I could have been faster,” Nines says simply, his skin prickling with restless energy, as he takes in the evidence of his failure etched into Gavin’s skin. The deep rakes on his forearms, the bruising to his jaw, the tears in his clothes. 

“You heard the lady,” Gavin continues, eyes still darting back to Nines, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “That thing had been modded beyond recognition. It was programmed never to give up. To kill. It wasn’t deviant. It wasn’t-”

Gavin’s face scrunches up and he doesn’t finish the sentence. Like the words themselves taste bitter. He licks his lips before pressing them into a thin line. 

Silence falls between them again and Nines turns away to look toward the horizon. The sky’s coloured like a fresh bruise; the air stifling, rain still drifting in and out of existence with every thunderous roll of the clouds, heat curling over the muddy road barely visible in the dying light as evening approaches.

He hates the way he feels sat in the car right now, eyes staring past the motion of the windscreen wipers. Like he’s trapped. Like they don’t have time. Which is stupid. And illogical. There’s that feeling again building up in his chest, like his lungs are filling up with water and smothering his biocomponents. His system diagnostics helpfully tell him that his thirium pump is beating almost twice as fast as his resting rate and there’s no reason why except this unexplainable need to feel something. 

“Pull over,” Nines says suddenly, fingers clutching at the denim of his jeans til the skin on his hands retracts into pools around his knuckles.

“What- why?” Gavin asks, casting a strange look to the passenger seat. “We’re like five minutes from town.”

“Humans can’t effectively multi-task and if I kiss you right now, there’s an 82% chance we will be involved in a road collision.”

“Jesus  _ Christ _ , Nines.”

Gavin swerves off the road in a spray of wet mud and the car bounces over the ridge into the slight dip that runs parallel alongside. He narrowly misses a sizable creosote bush. Nines grasps at Gavin’s collar before the human has even finished unbuckling his seat belt. He swears under his breath but doesn’t protest; in fact, he makes quick work of clambering over the gearstick that separates them and into Nines’ lap. Nines tugs Gavin by the belt loops in his jeans until he is flush against his chest and claims his mouth in an uncalculated messy kiss. He tastes the cut on his lip and the cigarette Gavin smoked on the hood of the car not half an hour earlier. 

The android feels his face crumple like paper as he kisses him hard. Fingers digging into his hips. If it hurts, Gavin doesn’t say. Nines’ tries to adjust his grip but his hands shake when he releases the mechanism in his knuckles. Gavin brings his own hands up, skimming his neck with his fingertips, before twining them into his hair in a way which has Nines’ leaning into the touch. The hot press of the human’s skin through his shirt, has the sensors on Nines’ skin prickling with static and his thirium pump thudding noisily against his sternum. There’s another feeling as well. A biting weight, a pressure in his chest and a  _ pull _ . Nines’ system has calculated and researched this feeling over and over and every time it comes out the same. Love? Love. It kind of hurts. Nines can’t feel pain but it  _ hurts _ . An ache in his chest and every wire in his system hot and fractious. Desperate to be closer; it’s never enough. An insatiable hunger that Nines shouldn’t be able to feel. Hands beneath Gavin’s shirt, running over every rib, counting them as he goes, the skin so hot against the pads of his fingertips. Collecting data. Adding it to the ever overflowing folder the human inhabits in his brain.  _ Gavin is 5”9. Gavin is hot-tempered. Gavin has green eyes. _ Green like an olive branch. Green like the wild sagebrush that grows in the desert here. Green like the water in the Detroit River when it’s been raining. It’s raining now. Heavier than before. The fat, swollen water drops bursting against the foggy windscreen. Here and now, in the gloom of the car, as the sun sets beneath the rainclouds, Gavin’s eyes are black. 

Gavin’s mouth finds its way to Nines’ neck, sucking a bruising kiss against the skin. Nines’ licks his lips, tasting the makeup of his DNA against the pseudo-flesh, missing the contact but shivering as the human’s lips graze his jaw. Gavin’s fingers rake through his scalp, lightly pulling on the hair until his fingers dance around the port on the nape of Nines’ neck and the android feels the prickle of static where his fingers pause. If Nines could breathe he’s sure his breath would catch in his throat at the slow, teasing caress the human employs. Instead, he feels the sensors spark and a feeling like molten metal drip down his spine. He feels himself fall forward, forehead pressed against Gavin’s shoulders, hands frozen in their pursuit up the human’s spine. 

Nines’ lips are caught on a futile exhale, mouthing against the fabric of Gavin’s shirt. There’s thirium residue on it. Not his own. And he thinks about Gavin pinned beneath the TR400. It’s enough to have him tilting his head into the human’s neck, licking into the skin, tasting the salt of his skin. The fluttering pulse beneath his tongue, the reassuring rush of DNA analysis; a reminder he’s alive. 

“Gavin,” Nines whispers against his throat. Not a statement or a question. Just a need. Gavin understands. He answers with a purposeful stroke of his index finger down the left side of Nines’ charging port, a move which elicits fire against his skin and has him shuddering.

Gavin moves his hand and Nines misses the contact immediately. Gavin pushes Nines up from his neck, so he’s back against the seat again and starts undoing the buttons on his shirt. His fingers are clumsy, fumbling the buttons through the little holes. 

“You’re staring at me,” Gavin says gruffly, his voice hoarse. His chest is heaving, hot little breaths against his face as he works. 

Nines nods, bringing his hand up to cup Gavin’s jaw. He runs his thumb over the swollen, bruised flesh as gently as he can. He traces the split in the skin of Gavin’s lower lip, feels the laboured breathing against the pad of his thumb and then down to the pattern of stubble on his chin. Gavin flinches a little when Nines’ fingertips graze against some of the swollen flesh, the blooming evidence of a bruise beginning to form on his right cheek and Nines’ chest tightens at the tiny micro-movement.

Gavin succeeds in undoing three buttons and smooths the torn fabric of Nines’ shirt away so he can kiss the base of his neck and the simulated line of his clavicle. The scratch of his stubble raises new lines of sensation against the skin of Nines’ neck, like a crackle of electricity running beneath his skin. The human’s breath hitches as he feels Nines palms smooth up his thighs. It’s slow and calculated as opposed to Gavin’s hands grasping clumsily at the android’s hips. He runs his hands over the hardness in his jeans, eliciting a hiss from between gritted teeth as Gavin drops his head to Nines’ shoulders. 

There’s a strange but lovely, dark feeling pooling in Nines’ core. A deep electrical heat that he can’t seem to get enough of. It blooms where the human’s lips meet his skin and travels through his body, through every synapse, til it pools between his hips. Overlaying everything else in his brain, like Gavin’s weaved himself between every line of code. And in a way he has. Nines moves to squeeze his hands at Gavin’s hips that earns him another little sound from the human’s throat. He can feel the heat of his body through the denim of his jeans. That insane, intense heat humans give off. But somehow ever the more potent for being Gavin’s. 

“We should head back to the hotel-” Nines whispers into the skin below Gavin’s ear. 

There’s a tiny pause punctuated only by what sounds like all of the air leaving Gavin’s lungs in a whoosh.   
  


“You have got to be joking,” he hears the human murmur against the fabric of his shirt. 

“Lest you want to be detained for public indecency,” Nines chuckles, feeling the gooseflesh spread across the skin of Gavin’s throat even now as he pulls away. 

* * *

  
  


The pool is swollen from the rain, the water shimmering in the storm like TV static. A glittering turquoise. The red light from the motel sign makes the wet floor tiles look like they’re bleeding. Crimson neon pools of light that shatter as their hurried feet break the surface, stumbling, til Gavin has wet, cold fingers fumbling to open the swing door, Nines’ lips pressed hot against his pulse point. 

They stumble indoors. Gavin barely has time to turn around before Nines’ hands are on his waist and in his hair, lips pressed hungrily to his. He closes his eyes and lets himself sink into the strange wet heat of Nines’ mouth. That clean non-taste of his lips and tongue. The little artificial breaths that say he’s activated some internal cooling program. He goes to run his own hands over the android’s chest, feeling the damp fabric clinging to his skin with rain water, ripped in places and sticky with thirium. 

"Fuck," Gavin says, tugging at the translucent material, breaking apart so he can speak. A little laugh bubbles out of his throat at the sight of Nines’ newly purchased work shirt in tatters. "Nines your shirt is wrecked."

There’s a pause where Nines’ lips hover over Gavin’s, almost tracing the lines of his mouth with his own. 

"So take it off," Nines breathes, grey eyes lidded and yet still so piercing. 

"What?" Gavin says dumbly before he can stop himself. 

"Touch me," Nines says. There’s a moment of silence before he speaks again, quietly adding a little "please." There's a desperation to his voice, a little break in it that's so achingly human. 

Gavin licks his lips, heart pounding. He reaches forward and slowly unbuttons the material of Nines' shirt where it's still intact, pushing it off his shoulders, his palms gliding smoothly over the skin. Nines' chest moves, his cooling protocols enabling that strange simulated breathing, the blue veins that lead from his thirium pump glittering in the dim light beneath his skin. Gavin traces one with the pad of his thumb, smoothing a line around his ribs, til his hand snakes to the bare skin of his spine. Nines leans forward on an exhale, so their foreheads are touching, his hair damp against Gavin's skin. Gavin splays his hand, palm flat to the android’s back, relishing the way Nines’ skin seems to prickle with static at the touch. Their noses are touching; just gently skimming, Nines’ nudging into Gavin’s cheek, feeling the disparity between their skin. The rough lines of scar tissue and the scratch of stubble on Gavin’s upper lip compared to Nines’ smooth, silken pseudo-flesh. They stay like that for what seems like an age, Gavin just relishing the closeness, feeling the flutter of Nines’ eyelashes against his cheek. 

It's Nines who breaks the reverie first. Perfect lips seeking out Gavin’s for a chaste kiss, his fingertips coming to rest at his jaw, painfully gentle like he's scared to hold too tight. Like Gavin's something precious and breakable. It hurts. It’s too much. But also not enough. It’s been so long- no, screw that- he can’t actually ever remember being held so gently. Not in all his life. God,  _ fuck _ . 

Nines' other hand pulls him flush to his chest, holds him there and Gavin can't help the way his arms wrap around him of its own accord. Desperate to be closer. Because he’ll never get enough of it. 

The kiss becomes heated quickly. Gavin leaning up into it and Nines’ tongue darting out to trace the lines of Gavin’s lips. Gavin moans and Nines swallows it down, hand fisted in the hair at Gavin’s nape, the other making quick work of the buttons of his shirt. Gavin only realises when he’s nearly finished, the quick, calculated movements gone unnoticed while his attention was on his mouth. When cool fingers brush against the soft hair below his navel, he jumps, stomach muscles twitching as Nines undoes the last button. 

Gavin pulls back, half to breathe- because he’s pretty sure he’s losing oxygen flow to his brain-, and half to let Nines push his shirt off his shoulders. His breath hitches on an inhale as Nines’ mouths at the bare skin of his collarbone before he pushes Gavin down on the bed. 

Gavin hastily pulls his socks and shoes off and Nines does the same slowly, eyes dark and pinned on every movement. When he’s finished, Gavin scrambles up the bed. For a moment, Nines doesn’t move, just stands at the edge of the bed, his gaze dragging up Gavin’s form. In the gloom he looks almost predatory, grey eyes chased to the very edge by his pupils, half illuminated in the slow pulse of the red neon vacancy sign. The blue pathways glitter beneath his skin, down his forearms, around his ribs and dipping beneath the waistband of his jeans. They ripple when he moves, leaning forwards, hands pressed to the bed. Gavin feels the depression of the mattress under his weight, the shift of the sheets beneath him, and it sends a coil of hot anticipation shooting through him. When Nines crawls up the bed and over him like some kind of feline, he backs up, mirroring the movement by lying down flat against the bed. Nines is barely touching him, balanced on the immeasurable strength of his forearms so he’s hovering over him, yet Gavin feels pinned by his stare alone. 

Nines’ damp curls fall over his face, tickling against Gavin’s brow. His face is expressionless but his eyes are dark, there’s tension in his jaw and a flicker at his temple. Gavin stares up at him, taking in the lidded eyes framed by black lashes, that sulky half-pout, the freckles. Everything. It makes his mouth go completely dry. 

Nines brings a hand up and traces his index finger over the bridge of Gavin’s nose, grazes his knuckles over his lips, drags the pads of his fingertips over his jaw, featherlight and reverent. Like he’s committing it all to memory, taking care not to apply pressure to the bruises and navigating around the grazes. Gavin lets him, remembering what the internet forum had said about the sensors in android’s hands. Eventually Nines settles down, slotting his hips against Gavin’s in a way that makes the tiniest, mortifying noise leave Gavin’s mouth. It brings so much more of them into contact and the feel of Nines lying between his legs is...a lot. There’s that sweet, sweet burn that says it's been way too fucking long. He feels like a teenager. Hypersensitive and full of emotion like he's riding the high of hormones and cheap booze, his whole belly full of butterflies and the electric buzz of anticipation. 

He doesn’t want to push but he also feels like he’s going to explode. He tilts his chin up and Nines responds by planting a searing kiss against his lips and threading a hand into his hair. He shifts his hips against his, leaning into the kiss. Gavin finds himself groaning into his mouth, the noise coaxed from deep within him by the soft deftness of Nines’ tongue on his own. He lets his hands grip the android’s hips with all the hunger of a starving man. And in a way he thinks he has been. Nines kisses him like he’s been waiting a lifetime to do it. It’s awkward in parts, clumsy even, which should be expected from someone who had their first kiss yesterday. But not in a bad way. In a way that has Gavin’s heart thundering against his ribcage like a jackhammer and his fingertips raw from grasping at every inch of skin he can get at. He strokes a purposeful line up and over the arc of Nines’ spine, traces the strong, sharp lines of his shoulder blades til he feels the tell-tale static at the nape of his neck. Nines has been characteristically quiet throughout all of this and Gavin wants to change that.

“M’wanna try something,” Gavin gasps, pulling back to bring his fingertips up to trace the edges of the port. 

Nines looks at him, eyes searching his face, LED flickering gold just once in a little swirl. He leans down and presses his lips to Gavin’s gently. This kiss is tender and achingly soft. It has Gavin winding his fingers through Nines’ silky hair, stroking it, his chest filled with that twisting fondness. Then Nines pulls back, eyes on Gavin’s once more as he nods.

Gavin carefully cups the nape of Nines’ neck, two fingers in his hair, two fingers pressed to the soft skin below. Nines licks his lip, anticipating the movement and Gavin obliges, stroking two fingers across the surface of his access port. Nines responds with a tiny unnecessary shaky inhale. Gavin doesn’t know why he does that. There’s no need for him to breathe at all let alone _in._ Nines eyes flicker shut for a second and Gavin pulls his fingers back. 

“I didn’t say to stop,” Nines says almost immediately, voice low and gravelly. He opens his eyes and the look he pins Gavin with is enough to have the human fumbling to trace the edges again. 

He applies a little more pressure this time, a long purposeful stroke down the middle and Nines shudders. It’s a fraction of the reaction a human might have, more like a slight shiver that runs right over the surface of his skin, but it’s a _reaction._ Gavin angles his wrist, makes it so he can drag the blunt edge of his nails down, catching in the ridges a little in a way which makes Nines’ flinch and let out a short sharp breath, his brows drawing together. 

“This good?” Gavin asks, drawing circles with his index finger, idly scratching against the corners of the port.

“It feels…” Nines begins, licking his lips before drawing his gaze up to look at Gavin, his face pained, “like fire.”

Gavin’s stomach drops and he immediately pulls his hand back.

“That’s not good,” he whispers. He’s about to apologise and call the whole thing off when Nines grabs his wrist. 

“Yes,” he breathes through gritted teeth, placing Gavin’s hand back on his nape. “It is.”

Gavin swallows down his anxiety and tentatively scrapes a fingernail down the length of the tangible edge and Nines eyelashes flutter at the contact, his lips slightly parted. It’s enough to spur him on. He wants to see Nines come apart. Partly for payback. Partly because he’s a stubborn motherfucker who hates being bad at anything. But mostly- terrifyingly- he realises it’s because he’s never wanted anything so badly in his life. It’s exemplified in the wave of exhilarating hunger that washes over him when Nines leans down and kisses him, open mouthed and hot and wet. 

“I want- I want to...” Gavin murmurs between the slick slide of their lips against one another. He’s breathless. And Nines’ doesn’t seem to have any regard for Gavin’s need for oxygen right now. He just keeps delving his tongue into Gavin’s mouth between leaning into his touch. “Nines, god damnit-” Gavin has to push a hand against his chest to separate them with a breathy laugh. “I wanna make you feel good.”

“You are,” Nines says breathily and fuck Gavin believes him but...

“Can you open this for me?” Gavin traces the whole length of the little rectangle on Nines' nape, relishing the way the android's eyelashes flutter at the sensation. 

But then the words sink in and Nines pauses for a second- for the tiniest moment- and Gavin notices. It’s a fleeting flash of something across his face that looks a little like uncertainty before his features smooth over into that veneer of cool he’s so used to. Not quite fear and not quite discomfort. But it was definitely something. 

“I trust you,” he says, his voice no more than a whisper and Gavin feels the way the skin fades under his fingertips and he little slide of plastic as the casing retracts.

But Gavin saw the look; that little frown. It hurts so bad that Nines has a reason to look at him like that. To doubt him. To doubt this. But Gavin knows he deserves it. Hadn’t he said a hundred and one different hurtful things over these past few months? He’d been  _ such an asshole.  _ He wouldn’t be surprised if Nines reconsidered wanting anything to do with Gavin, let alone allowing him to do something so intimate. God, he wishes he could go back in time and fuckin’ kick himself into the dirt for daring to be the cause of that little furrow between Nines’ brow. Knowing that Nines has already given him far more than he could ever deserve. He wishes he had the right words to explain that he’d do anything for him. But it would come out jumbled and shit anyway. He's never been good at expressing himself. A hundred and one words linger and die on the tip of his tongue. 

The whole time Nines looks at him, pupils blown wide, eyelashes fluttering a little as he waits for Gavin to move. 

“You sure?”

Nines nods in a way which is almost enthusiastic for him and brings his hand up to cover Gavin’s, guiding him back to the edge. Gavin licks his lips and dips his index finger into the whirring heat. 

He feels the pad of his fingertip come into contact with the smooth surface of a thick wire and he experimentally brushes along the length of it, his touch featherlight. The reaction is immediate. Nines grasps tightly at Gavin’s wrist, artificial nails digging into the skin, and Gavin freezes his stomach dropping. Nines’ other hand is gripped so tightly in the sheets beside Gavin’s head it’s a wonder he’s not ripped through the fabric. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,"

He goes to move his hand but Nines holds it firmly in place. The android licks his lips and his eyelids flutter open glitchily. 

“Please  _ move _ ,” he says but his voice comes out laced with a thin layer of static like the crackly interference they get on the radio in the desert. Suddenly they’re kissing again and Nines is trembling as Gavin strokes the inside walls of the access port, knuckles brushing against the sensitive wiring. He hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing. He’s vaguely reminded of sitting in the back of his Toyota Camry with his hand awkwardly shoved down Jessica-from-calculus’ jeans. It’s the same heady rush of exploration teamed with brand new intensity and hunger like he’s never felt before when Nines sucks on his tongue. 

He’s unbelievably hard in his jeans, hips pinned in place by Nines’ heavy form, but it doesn’t stop the stilted jerky movements he finds himself doing at the sensation of Nines shivering at his touch. God, if he’d told himself a few months ago that being knuckle deep in android wires would have made him this hard and hot and desperate he would probably have had an aneurysm. Yet here he is, stroking two fingers between Nines’ wires and whining into his mouth as Nines shivers and shifts to slot a thigh between his legs. 

He can’t help the way his eyes roll at the sensation, lips slipping from Nines’ as he gasps. Too much. Not enough. It feels like a slow, dark burn of friction through his body as he helplessly rocks into his leg. He tries to respond in kind by stroking a finger over what feels like some kind of connection port and Nines breaks the kiss to gasp out a crackle of static. His hair is falling into his face, still damp from the rain, eyelashes fluttering as the skin on his neck and jaw start to pool a little. Both of his hands are now bracketed beside Gavin’s head, his composure in tatters, as his chest heaves, his cooling program struggling to combat the heat coming off of him. 

Seeing Cyberlife’s most advanced prototype reduced to a shuddering mess, well...it’s extremely hot. Gavin runs his free hand up and down Nines’ chest, tracing the shape of his thirium pump, the visible raised edges, the pretty blue glow. He feels the way it vibrates under his touching, beating immeasurably fast like it’s humming. The blue rivers of thirium visible through the ridges in his casing glitter an electric blue in the half-light. Nines responds by grazing his lips over the shell of Gavin’s ear, then kissing the lobe, then suckling at the hot slip of skin beneath his jaw. 

Gavin has to grit his teeth together, jaw set painfully, as he whimpers and grinds against Nines’ thigh helplessly. But by fuck, he is  _ not  _ gonna come in his jeans like some god-damn high schooler. He pulls his hand away from Nines’ wires, which earns him a little staticy groan from the android. He reaches down with both hands to unbutton Nines’ jeans first- ever the gentleman- but the android grabs his wrist before he can make a start on the zip. 

Gavin turns his face questioningly to Nines and finds that little frown back again. He wants to smooth the crease from between his eyebrows with his thumb. To kiss that space free of tension. He knows why he's looking at him like that. Regardless of how dumbfounded Gavin is that someone as hot as Nines could be insecure...he gets it.

“Nines,” he says, as gently as he can when his voice comes out that hoarse. “I don’t care.”

And he means it. Which is scary in itself. He twists his wrist out of Nines’ grip and succeeds in lacing their fingers together instead. The android’s LED spins a full cycle of gold, his eyes flickering down for a moment, his tongue coming out to wet the plump flesh of his lower lip. In the silence, Gavin can really hear the whirring hive of his interior biocomponents and the thud, thud, thud of his thirium pump working overtime. 

“Cyberlife took everything away from me that would help me form relationships with humans,” Nines says softly, his voice wavering in a way that Gavin’s never heard before. There’s no longer that crackle of static but there’s an instability in his tone that’s so acutely human it makes Gavin’s chest ache. “They didn’t want to risk me repeating the mistakes of the RK800. I feel..I am.. Incomplete.”

The last word feels like ice in Gavin’s chest and he threads his fingers into Nines’ hair.   
  


“You’re not.”

“It’s how I feel. It’s illogical in some ways,” Nines’ gaze slips to look down at his own body. “But I still feel it.”

“Emotions are illogical, it’s part of being human,” Gavin says, tilting Nines’ chin up so their eyes meet. “Now come on.”

He shuffles backwards away from Nines for a moment and the android looks perplexed. He continues, ducking under the duvet and then gesturing for Nines to follow.

“What are you doing?” Nines asks, looking at Gavin like he’s gone insane.

“Getting under the covers, dumbass.”

Nines blinks but slowly follows. Gavin drags the coverlet up and over their heads until they’re nose to nose beneath the sheets, the underneath lit up by the dull golden glow of Nines’ LED. Nines lets out a little unnecessary breath, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek as his gaze darts downwards to their legs tangled together. He slowly, carefully brings Gavin’s hand to the waistband of his jeans.

“I just struggle to see why you would want this when you could have something real.”

“You are real, Nines.”

Gavin smoothes his palm over the hard planes of Nines’ abdominals, tracing the glittering rivers of thirium. 

“But not human.”

“Maybe not but I thought you were supposed to be like a supercomputer?” Gavin laughs nervously at the blank look on Nines’ face. “You’re looking at the two of us, and it’s  _ you  _ that you think should be worried? I’m still here trying to work out why you even  _ like  _ me.”

He kinda wishes he hadn’t said anything. Like talking about his own insecurities suddenly makes them very real like they’re sat between them and he can feel them, so real they might as well be depressing the mattress with their weight. Nines may not feel like he measures up physically but Gavin has a hundred and one shitty flaws that have proven time and time again to drive people away. It’s what he does best. His nerves flutter sickeningly in his chest because actually he doesn’t want to hear Nines’ answer. Doesn’t want to know what could possibly have tricked this perfect being into thinking he’s worth the time of day. 

“What do you mean?” Nines asks, blinking unnecessarily in the strange gold light beneath the sheets. “I like everything about you.”

It’s too sincere. He’s too good. He’d fuckin’ grouched and blushed and stormed off when Nines had called him handsome earlier. Thinking it was all smooth-talking; Nines  _ finally  _ getting the hang of flirting. But Nines stares at him now, with wide eyes full of sincerity and Gavin’s scared he might actually have meant it. And that’s terrifying. It’s enough to make him want to cut his dick off for every mean word he ever said to him, in jest or not. 

“You’re...perfect,” he manages to choke out. “And- And I’m an asshole...I’m rude- I was  _ so  _ rude to you Nines. Why would you ever-”   
  


“It is true that certain chemistry overrides logical and rational thought,” Nines interrupts, LED flickering. “It dampens cognitive function and although my central processing unit does not exactly mimic the human brain there are definitely similarities in its structure-” he’s speaking quickly now and with that nervous energy he sometimes gets when his brain seems to be working faster than his mouth. Gavin just stares wide-eyed and not really understanding the scientific jargon he’s spewing. “Not to say that me liking you is illogical...it just eclipses everything else. I have a _ whole folder full _ of reasons. Some of which are in themselves illogical but-” Gavin blinks, wondering where Nines is going with this until the android looks at him with that wide-eyed stare and adds quietly: “I have often read that humans liken love to insanity. And I suppose now I can see why.”

Nines blinks once at him in the half-light, black lashes sweeping against his cheeks almost in slow motion like a cat, eyes still wide despite his flooded pupils. But all Gavin can hear is the sound of his own pulse crashing in his ears at his words. One word in particular. 

Fuck.  _ Say something you piece of shit.  _ He opens his mouth ready to say...to say what? How can he possibly respond to that? His heart is hammering against his ribcage and his voice catches in his throat.  _ Say something.  _

**_Anything._ **

Instead, he kisses him. Snakes his arm round Nines’ narrow waist and pulls him flush against him. He pours everything he can’t say into the kiss. Every word his stupid brain can't bring himself to say, every wordless exchange that’s passed between them, every apology, every time he let himself walk away when he should have stayed. Everything. And Nines makes a little whisper of a gasp against Gavin’s mouth, and he feels his face scrunch up against the force of everything he’s feeling at that moment. How much Nines is willing to give him. How much he wants it. And how much he doesn’t deserve it.

Nines breaks the kiss to shimmy out of his jeans. It’s one of the few moments Gavin has ever seen him look uncoordinated. Frantic, even. He takes the rare opportunity to run his hands over every inch of the smooth, soft skin he can feel. He slides his palms over the taut, pseudo-muscle of Nines’ upper thigh, kneading it, relishing how it feels, He watches, gaze dropped in awe as the skin pools in response to his touch, the white and blue plastic showing through. He runs a finger along an exposed seam in Nines’ chassis, one that runs down his stomach where he can see the bright blue veins beneath and Nines lets out a tiny breathy noise that's so vulnerable and immensely human that Gavin is hypnotised by it. 

Once Nines has stripped himself of the rest of his clothes, he tugs insistently on the belt loops of Gavin’s jeans. Gavin snorts and pulls them down, a little pleased at Nines’ eagerness. Nines has the audacity to ping the elastic on his boxers too in a wordless command and Gavin suddenly feels strangely shy, despite everything. He slips them over his thighs, face flushed. It’s kinda hard not to feel a little on show when Nines is staring at him like that, gaze half-lidded, LED going nuts at his temple, the colour lighting up the weird little not-quite-a-tent situation they’ve got going on. Especially as the light alternates between gold and red like he’s malfunctioning. Gavin briefly wonders if he’s recording this. 

He gets as far as trying to kick them off his ankles before Nines pushes the blanket off their heads and Gavin keens as the cool air hits his skin. He’s half grateful for the air but also suddenly feels very exposed as Nines smooths his hands over the expanse of his bare skin, taking in the sight with hungry eyes. Nines takes a moment to trace his fingertips over Gavin’s chest before he pins him to the sheets. The pressure of Gavin’s dick pressed against the smooth skin of Nines’ abdomen is borderline painful, a hot, heady burn that has him leaking against the android’s stomach. Nines mouths at every inch of his exposed skin of his throat, licking his tongue in that infuriating way that means he’s probably running some kind of weird analysis shit, but Gavin can’t bring himself to care because he’s clearly enjoying himself. 

Nines kisses and licks down his abdomen, around his navel, between his hips, accompanied by the slow trace of his fingertip across every inch of skin, every scar, every freckle. Gavin can’t really help the trembling gasps that fall from his lips with every second that passes. A kiss to each protruding hip bone, his hands moving with him to stroke over his stomach and he can feel the grain of the plastic where his skin has pulled back on his fingers. Gavin doesn’t even have time to feel self-conscious about the slight softness to his tummy, how he’s not as in shape as he used to be, because right then Nines looks up at him with a sly hunger and licks a long, purposeful stripe up his dick from base to tip. He swirls his tongue purposefully around the head and Gavin prays he’s not analysing that _ , _ back arching, eyes screwed shut as Nines takes him fully into his mouth. The smooth, wet slide of his mouth is almost soothing against the searing heat of his own flesh. Almost. If it weren’t for the fact Nines’ tongue seems to know exactly what to do. Oh, if Cyberlife only knew what their multi-million dollar investment was doing now. He can’t help the way his hips stutter, trying not to buck up into that slick, wet heat because this is Nines’ first time and he’s supposed to be making him feel good. Instead, he’s got his hands fisted in the sheets so he doesn’t grip at Nines’ beautiful curls, biting his lip to stop the broken whimpers from falling from his lips, Nines’ hands holding his hips still as he sinks down til his nose is pressed to his stomach. 

“F-fuck,” Gavin gasps and he feels like the words have been ripped from him. Nines has his hips pinned to the mattress preventing him from exercising any control over this situation so he’s completely at the mercy of that wet, tortuous mouth. “ _N_ _ ines _ .”

Gavin isn’t sure if he could say anything else if he wanted to. He’s pretty sure that any coherent thought, his entire vocabulary in fact, has been lost to the firm press of Nines’ tongue to the underside of his dick. His stomach clenches hard,  _ painfully _ , at the feeling building between his hips. He daren’t open his eyes. Because if he sees Nines doing  _ that  _ this will all be over embarrassingly quickly. 

Nines pulls off too soon, and Gavin dares to open an eye, peering down at the android between his legs. It’s a mistake. His mouth is dripping with excess analysis fluid, eyes flooded black and there’s something about his wet smirking lips that has Gavin worried he’s gonna come right there and then. Instead, he watches as Nines crawls back over his hips to place a searing kiss to his lips. He tastes like him, Gavin thinks dizzyingly at the back of his clouded brain. He doesn’t have long to contemplate it though because Nines pulls away and wraps his fingers around his cock again. 

Gavin tries to sit up, to lean up and capture Nines’ mouth in a kiss, but he pulls back a little, just out of reach, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as his eyes rove over his face. He’s thoroughly enjoying himself and all Gavin can do is pant and beg. He knows he’s blushing, flushed red down his neck and chest under Nines’ cool, wintry gaze. Loves it as much as he hates it. He’s absolutely certain Nines is monitoring every aspect of his vitals, recording everything to memory, learning the patterns of his body with every stroke. Stubborn fucking android has to be the best at absolutely everything so of course he’s determined to absolutely break him right now. 

“Fuck, Nines-  _ baby _ ,” the pet name falls from his lips and he’s mortified but also can’t bring himself to care. Not when Nines does that thing with his wrist and he feels like he might die. 

He wants to do the same, wants to twist his fingers through Nines’ wires til he can’t see straight. He tries to pull Nines down close enough that he can wind his fingers round to the back of his neck but Nines leans back, just out of reach again, with that wry ghost of a smile and his grip loosens. 

“Nines, fuck,  _ please _ , I swear to god” he half sobs. Gavin never thought he'd be one to beg but he also doesn’t know exactly what he’s asking for. To stop Nines from teasing. To make it last forever. He can’t decide. All he knows is that his brain has completely stopped working, his only thoughts are those that involve Nines’ fingers wrapped around him. He feels like he might actually be about to break, thighs trembling, heels grinding into the mattress.

“I hate you,” he chokes out. 

“No, you don’t,” Nines says gently, fucking finally relenting and leaning down to place the sweetest kiss to Gavin’s lips. He smirks against his lips like he’s immensely pleased with himself and Gavin takes advantage of the moment and wraps a hand around his neck, fisting his hand in his hair so he can lick into his mouth furiously. Nines doesn’t seem to mind, uses his free hand to cup Gavin’s face gently. Sweetly. Infuriatingly so. 

Gavin lets his fingers trail out of Nines’ hair to the still-exposed slot where his neck port is. He plunges his fingers in before Nines can realise what he’s doing and the android can’t even break the kiss before he has to moan into Gavin’s mouth. Gavin shudders at the sound, tasting it on his tongue, as he trails his nails over the back of the port where all the exposed sensors are. There’s a moment then where Nines’ grip on him tightens and he whimpers- he fucking  _ whimpers-  _ against his lips. And fuck, it takes everything ounce of will power in Gavin’s body not to buck up into Nines’ hand at that sound. Instead, he uses it to press the pad of his fingers into one of the sensors, tracing the edge with his fingernail in a way that has Nines biting into the flesh of his lower lip so hard it draws blood. 

“Gavin,” Nines growls against his mouth. A warning. Fuck, fuck, fuck, there’s something about the commanding tone and crackle of static in his voice that’s so insanely hot. But he’s determined. So desperate to make this  _ good  _ for him. 

He lets his eyes flutter open, even as he’s stroking the circuit board in Nines’ spine, and it’s another mistake. The sight of Nines fucking desperate and keening, forehead pressed to his own, it’s too much. Has his stupid, needy heart in his mouth, ready to tell him all those things he wants to say. What he wants Nines to know. But he  _ can’t _ . 

He bites his lip and screws his eyes shut instead. Pressing insistently to the exposed sensors, until Nines’ shudders in his arms and around his cock in a way which has him tipping over the edge. He feels everything at once. The feel of Nines’ tongue in his mouth, his shivering touch, the blood pounding in his ears and white-hot heat between his hips and the wetness of him spilling messily between their stomachs. He’s pretty sure he says something. Maybe a curse. Maybe Nines’ name. Something lost on a futile exhale and then kissed into non-existence by Nines’ insistent mouth. His whole body thrums with a crackle of static, that starts where their lips meet, rolls through his stuttering hips right to where his toes are curled in the sheets. And then Nines collapses heavily into the crook of his shoulder, LED a searing red against his lips. 

Gavin lies there, a sticky fucking mess, heart still hammering in his chest, with however many hundred lbs of android pinning him to the bed, his head blissfully quiet. He casts a glance to his right and watches the red ring of Nines’ LED swirl to a blissful blue. A tiny little smile begins to curl at the corners of Nines’ mouth and he leans to place a kiss to Gavin’s forehead. 

Gavin grins sleepily, giddy from the post-sex high and slings an arm around Nines, pulling him close. The android lets out a little tut of disgust at the sticky mess of Gavin’s stomach and leans over the bed for the ripped remains of his shirt to clean him off. Then he settles, alarmingly comfortably under Gavin’s arm. They stay like that for a while, he's not sure how long, as he listens to his ragged breathing slow. The wave of sleep starting to take him. Until he feels, somewhere in the back of his brain where he’s still kind of awake, the feeling of Nines’ fingertips tracing the spaces between freckles on his back. It’s agonisingly soothing. And he thinks, turning in a sleepy haze to allow Nines’ better access, that he could get used to this. 

There's that feeling again in his chest, that warm fluttering, like nerves only sweeter.

Then his stomach rumbles. A gnawing gripe that has him scrunching his face in displeasure. 

“You are hungry,” Nines says quietly, his fingertips paused between Gavin’s shoulder blades in a way which makes the human shiver. 

“Yeah but no offence Nines,” Gavin groans, stretching like a cat. “I think you’re supposed to take me out to dinner _before_ you fuck me.” 

He smirks as he rolls over to look at the android.  Nines raises a single eyebrow just a fraction, head propped up on his elbow, that one curl falling lazily against his forehead. 

“Tch,” he purses his lips prettily. “And to think I was going to let you order pizza.”

Gavin sits up at that, hair stuck in an endearing crown of spikes, eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

“For real?”

“No, never mind,” Nines says, lying back down against the sheets. “We can drive to the health food store around the corner and you can eat something that won’t significantly shorten your lifespan.”

Gavin groans and pulls the duvet over his face. 

“You will have to physically drag me out of this bed,” he grumbles, already feeling the satisfying ache as his limbs start getting heavier, sinking into the mattress. 

“Not a problem,” Nines quips, fingers dancing beneath the covers til they find Gavin’s side and pulling him flush against him. For a second Gavin stares up at him in horror because  _ holy fuck is he actually serious about moving right now? _ But then he sees that tiny creeping smile at the corner of his mouth and he scoffs and pulls him down into the sheets. 

The sun has well and truly set now, bathing the room in just the cool, blue light from Nines’ LED, with the occasional pulse of red from the sign outside. The android blinks at him in the half-light and Gavin can’t help reaching out and tracing the shape of his lips with his fingertips. He feels then, the stirrings in his chest, the weight of everything left unsaid and he has to press his lips together. It burns like a fire and his heart pounds despite himself. He knows Nines can hear it. Wonders if he knows why. 

_ Fuck, I think I’m... _

_ I think I…  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it because I have agonised over this for days instead of doing my uni work/staring into the void. 
> 
> I love you. 
> 
> x


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of a resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys, it's been a little longer than anticipated. I finished my post-grad! And then took a bit of a break from everything to get my mind back in gear. I've been very busy...drawing, writing, planning new reed900 AUs (imagine working on one single, continuous project at once- couldn't be me). Some days I've felt really unmotivated and I've come back on here and read through all the lovely comments I've had on this fic...they just completely make my day. Also- some of you have been doing some really wonderful fanart for this fic which is just the biggest compliment ever? I can't get over it. So this is a little shout out to @intentionaldigital, @witchyleaf_art and @actuallyshion on instagram for all the beautiful art! It's just overwhelming- I love it. 
> 
> Anyway- without further ado, here is the penultimate instalment of 400 Lux, hopefully the next update won't take as long but I can't promise anything because now I'm writing a space!au alongside this. Sue me. 
> 
> I love you and I hope you're all staying safe and healthy.

_ Everything is warm and wet and sleepy. Nines looks beautiful- of course, floating in the water, pink from the reflection of the sky. Sunrise or sunset. Gavin can’t tell. Nothing but fat, rosy clouds and the golden light from the sun. He stares up at them, suspended peacefully in the warm water of the pool, the surface glossy and undisturbed, his limbs weightless. He doesn’t remember it being this warm before. His fingertips break the silent reverie of the surface of the water, seeking Nines’ hand. He catches at his wrist, soft and cool and solid. Nines turns his face in the water, skin damp and beaded, glistening in the sun. That little smirk playing around the corners of his pretty mouth.  _

_ He feels the tug on his wrist but doesn’t register the meaning behind the movement til he’s underwater. Oh, this game again. He swishes through the cascades of bubbles, fingers wide and grasping, closing around nothing in the pink water.  _

_ No, not pink. Red.  _

_ The realisation hits him all at once. Nines is gone. And so too is the pool. He can’t move. His arms feel more and more like dead weight at his sides with every second he floats through the dark water. There’s just him, the roaring sound of the bubbles and an accompaniment of crackling static. The feeling starts at the base of his spine, an electric shiver that runs up his body and spreads through his chest til he’s choking for air. Tight, crushing pressure on his ribs. The weight of the water. The blood. So much blood. And through the haze of static he hears that voice, the crackle and warp as the soundbite restarts. The same taped confession on repeat. So clear even beneath the water, like it’s seared into his brain.  _

_ And the screams.  _

_ The crying.  _

Gavin feels himself emerge from the dream, as though he’s surfacing from underwater, gasping for breath and lungs burning, his skin prickling, shook up like the carbon-dioxide in a soda can. Like his whole body is being pulled, a harsh tug, a fist around his sternum. His ribs are so sore, he may as well have been, the pain of yesterday's bruises blooming as his chest heaves. He rubs calloused palms over the dark shapes, like ink stains in the dim light, skin damp from sweat but not water. The only thing trapping him is the starched sheets knotted around his thighs and ankles. And the smell of the chlorine is distant and faded from the pool outside. 

A figure blinks owlishly in the dark, a dark silhouette against the curtains, the material lit up every so often in red neon light. The perfect halo of curls is rumpled where he’s been lying- not sleeping- against the pillow, sticking up in odd angles and illuminated by the little gold light from his temple. 

He sits perfectly still in the sheets next to him until Gavin becomes aware of the cool touch of Nines’ fingertips against his forearm, his own skin clammy with sweat. It’s grounding. But he also feels the prickling creep of heat and humiliation up the back of his neck despite the rattling of the air conditioning.

He pulls away, rolling over in the damp sheets, so his legs swing off the side and his feet hit the rough carpet. He hears Nines shuffle in the sheets behind him and those cool fingertips are back, a soft touch between the wrought edges of his shoulder blades. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Nines says quietly, his voice sounding far off amidst the ringing in Gavin’s ears. “But it might help to talk about it.”

Gavin drags his sweaty palms down his face and exhales heavily through his fingers. He squints through the gaps, the dull edges of the room coming more into focus with every pulse of the neon light outside. He sees the edge of the other mattress, the scattering of clothes, the empty suitcases tucked beneath the bed, all lit up in ruby light. A chill runs up his back, a rush of goosebumps and tiny needles; the flush of heat gone all of a sudden, and replaced by the undulating breaths from the air conditioning unit. 

“It’s just...it’s just life, Nines,” he says, licking the salt off his upper lip. The remnants of the dream still echo in the space between his ears, his pounding heart beat evidence of its existence. It’s almost as if he can hear the far off screams. Still taste the blood. “I’ve seen a lot of fucked up shit in my time. Some things stick with you.”

There’s quiet then and Gavin sees the glow of Nines’ LED as it lights up the wall, gold then blue, as he comes to some kind of conclusion in that clever brain of his. 

“I suppose I can empathise,” Nines says and Gavin lets out a little hot puff of air at that. 

It’s not that he’s actively  _ trying  _ to be a dick here. He understands that Nines is just trying to help. But it’s kinda frustrating. He just...can’t seem to get how an android that’s not even a year old could ever come close to understanding the kind of shit Gavin’s seen. He’s listened to the twisted ravings of multiple serial killers. He’s pulled bloated corpses out of the Detroit river. He’s watched a guy blow his brains out against the ceiling right in front of him. He’s-

“All new lines of androids were tested by Cyberlife for compliance with their standards,” Nines says, his voice interrupting Gavin’s thoughts. Gavin frowns in the dark, dropping his hands to his knees, as he peers over his shoulder at the android. “This was before deviancy was even on their radar. Most domestic models only go through a select program of shock conditioning as they’re unlikely to be exposed to anything too horrific.” He catches Gavin’s eye in the dark, grey irises glittering. “An oversight, perhaps.” 

He pauses, still holding Gavin’s gaze, and the human wonders whether he should ask where this is going because right now he’s not really interested in having a discussion about Cyberlife’s old factory processes. But Nines continues, turning to look at a spot on the wall in front of him where the wallpaper is peeling.

“But with the RK line, the level of conditioning had to be more intense. More in-depth. They knew about deviancy at this point and had to do everything in their power to stop that from developing within this line. In order to achieve systematic desensitisation, they had to expose the system to all manner of things. After the…mistakes of the RK800, the RK900 line was rushed into production. They did not take the time to ensure that the system testing procedures were fully wiped from my memory.” Nines blinks, long eyelashes dusting his cheeks as he pauses again, and there’s a little swipe of his tongue across his lower lip, the wetness glistening in the dim light. Gavin stares. “Of course, at the time I wasn’t deviant. I knew what was happening, understood the logic behind it and the tests proved that I would withstand deviancy even under the pressure of extreme external stimuli. But now…” Nines’ LED flickers for a second and he licks his lips again. When he next speaks his voice is a little softer. “Well, what once would not have evoked an emotional response…” He trails off again, his gaze unfocused. His hands are fidgeting with the coverlet in his lap when he next speaks. “I still have access to those memories, though most are encrypted or behind an internal firewall, they are still there. And I, of course, feel differently about them now.” He looks up at Gavin now, meeting the other’s gaze again. “It’s not the same as a nightmare would be for a human. But I understand the fear of something that you logically know cannot hurt you.”

Gavin isn’t sure how long he stares, or how long Nines stares back before his gaze drops to his fingers, still worrying the loose threads at the hem of the coverlet. The weight of Nines’ admission hangs in the air like a thick fog and Gavin...well he never really considered that Nines might have his own shit. 

He can’t help the way his brain wanders, wondering what kind of things Cyberlife would have run through Nines’ mind. What he would have been made to see. A barrage of terrifying, unsettling images. Would they have hurt him? Put his body through intense stress? Flashes of sterile white walls and steel tools glinting in the clinical light of a laboratory swim before his eyes. He thinks about what Anderson told him about Connor; an investigation gone wrong where he’d accidentally interfaced with a suspect at the moment the android blew its own brains out. The thought makes him feel nauseous, that sick, twisting feeling in his gut again because of  _ course  _ he never considered it. He’s selfish. And he had never been interested in anything to do with androids before Nines. He opens his mouth to say all this. To say something. Because the air is ringing in the silence between them and Nines is still staring at his shaking fingers. 

“We only got this job cause Anderson and Connor were tied up in Detroit,” Gavin says quietly, his voice hoarse from sleep. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm for something to do with his hands. “I... don’t usually do homicides. Haven’t for a few years.”

“I know,” Nines says, looking up, his LED flickering. “You’ve been on the drugs squad for the past two and a half years.”

Gavin knows that he knows. Nines has the whole DPD database in his head. He could probably piece this whole story together himself if he wanted to and Gavin wouldn’t have to actually  _ talk  _ about it. But there’s something about the dark room and Nines’ staring at him like that, with earnest concern, that makes him a little braver. 

“There was a shift in staffing,” Gavin says on an exhale, feeling breathless against the thumping of his own heart. “We had more support, and I asked for a transfer while I could.”

Nines reaches for him in the dark and Gavin allows himself to be pulled back into the bed, drawing the covers up to his chest, their shoulders bumping against each other. The touch more intimate than any kiss they’ve shared. 

“I couldn’t handle it anymore,” Gavin admits, exhaling and scrunching his face up at the sound of the words. It’s a fucking understatement at best. He remembers the time where he’d drink more often than not, spirits to dull the memories, to ease himself into a dreamless sleep. It only worked half the time. But better than the alternative. “There were a lot of bad cases. Old cases. One in particular.” He feels a little like he’s babbling, his mouth dry, lips sticking to his teeth and his chest thick with the weight of the memories. “A serial killer. Victims were all kids...seriously fucked up shit. That case stuck with me for a long time. I was first at the scene for a few of the victims.” 

He inhales sharply, face scrunched in the dark. His nose fills with the intangible scent of blood and he feels the rising panic in his chest. Memories of weeks spent toeing the stained carpet of a therapist’s office, skirting their questions and staring into the little crescent moon indents of his palms from balled fists. 

No, he thinks as he grips at the sheets with the same intensity, he doesn’t want to go back there.

“The DPD has mandatory therapy sessions for shit like that. I went to a few of them. Enough to tick the boxes that I’d given it a go. So Fowler would fucking get off my back. But it didn’t work. Fuck, I don’t wanna relive those memories. I never want to see that shit again.”

There’s a silence then. He falls back against the sheets, skin damp with perspiration and chest thrumming with the kick-drum beat of his heart against his ribs. He stares resolutely at the ceiling, his eyes prickling with tears he’s adamant aren’t there. He sniffs and presses his lips together, matching his breathing with the slow pulse of light from the vacancy sign outside as the ceiling lights up in red every few seconds. There’s another light too. The flickering gold of Nines’ LED for a moment and then the blur to blue.

“But you do,” Nines says quietly. “You see it every night,”

Gavin doesn’t look at him. Continues to stare at the swirled stucco ceiling but...he’s got a point. 

“Yeah but-” 

_ But what? _

He closes his mouth. For once in his life he stops arguing. Nines crawls up the bed, so he’s lying on his stomach beside him, propped up on his elbows and a sad hint of a smile playing around his lips. 

He knows everything, doesn’t he?

Gavin tilts his head, staring up at the android and Nines looks back, over his shoulder, grey eyes glittering in the darkness. The vacancy sign blinks dolefully on outside the window so that every few seconds he’s half-dipped in the ruby glow. Gavin thinks he prefers the moments of darkness more, where the thirium glistens beneath his skin in blue rivers, and he knows Nines can’t see the mess of imperfections on Gavin’s own skin. Nines looks too perfect to be real, like something Gavin shouldn’t be allowed to touch. And yet he can. Which is strange in itself. Strange to think there was a time when Gavin would have been more likely to split his knuckles on that perfect slope of a nose. When the intensity of that gaze would have made him feel a stab of fear and not the slow burn of heat in his cheeks that he feels now.

He reaches, tentative fingers trembling in the dark, until they thread into the silken hair at the base of Nines’ neck. Nines closes his eyes, leaning his head back to arch into the touch, like a cat. Like Gavin’s hand is the one thing tethering him to this earth. He lets his fingers wander, petting down to the soft surface of Nines’ shoulders. He feels a tremor, like a prickle of static. Even in the gloom, in the muted palette of Gavin’s shitty human vision, Nines is a masterpiece. He feels the soft dip between his shoulder blades, the little creases of skin where he’s tense. He lets the pad of his fingertip trace the bright, brilliant mechanism of Nines’ spine glowing beneath his skin, like a string of electric beads. He smooths his palm over the soft valley of his lower back. 

He knows he joked about Cyberlife’s finest having engineered Nines’ ass to perfection but  _ damn,  _ you can kinda tell that someone really pored over the blueprints for this thing. He allows himself a gentle squeeze, which earns him an amused little snort from the android. He grins weakly despite himself in the darkness. It’s funny how he already feels better. The weight of the dream, of the residual feeling of fear, shed like an old skin. It’s...nice. He blows out a breath and chases a vein down the length of Nines’ thigh, to the back of the knee and smirks when Nines’ leg twitches beneath his fingertip. Very human. Then he pulls back and continues to trace down the long expanse of his calf to the ridge of his imitation Achilles tendon, a band of thin blue light flickering beneath his skin like a luminous blue ribbon. He smooths his finger right off the edge of his heel and into the darkness of the room. 

He casts a look up the bed to where Nines is watching him carefully over his shoulder, his cheek resting gently on his clasped fingers. He feels the lazy heat of his gaze, framed by those impossibly long lashes. 

“You're very pretty,” Gavin says finally, as though that shitty statement can somehow convey everything he wants to say in that moment, everything he’s too scared to admit. He watches the way Nines ducks his head in a terrifyingly human display of bashfulness. He sees the way his LED flashes gold for a split second. 

“I’m glad you approve,” Nines says curtly, not meeting Gavin’s gaze as he clambers back up the bed to sit beside him. 

“It’s hard not to when you look like that,” Gavin says, sitting down heavily on the twisted sheets next to him so Nines has to look up. 

“I guess the idea of pretty is sort of redundant when it’s manufactured,” the android says flatly, steely eyes suddenly locked on his face. 

Gavin snorts.

“Bullshit. Could say the same about humans,” he scrubs at the scar tissue across the bridge of his nose. “It’s all luck and genetics and not getting your nose broken three times over.”

“I like your nose,” Nines says earnestly, tugging Gavin down by the back of his neck til he’s lying beside him. He feels each individual finger knotting in the hair at his nape like a brand that sends a shiver running down his back. “Everything exemplary about  _ me  _ was made in a factory.”

Gavin huffs out a laugh, suddenly breathless by their proximity, and the way he can hear the faint murmur of Nines’ thirium pump. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to it. He runs the clumsy pads of his fingertips up Nines’ abdomen, chasing the blue lines to the glowing outline of the bicomponent. He lets a finger circle the shape, feeling the raised rim of the edge and the little rush of air that Nines lets out at the touch. 

“What about your sparkling wit?” 

Nines brings a long finger up and traces a line down from Gavin’s brow, over the broken peak of his nose and down his lips. Slowly. Studiously. Head tilted ever so slightly in lazy appraisal.    
  


“I think you rubbed off on me,” he says quietly, barely a murmur. There’s a little curl of his lips at the corners as he thumbs the edge of Gavin’s jaw gently where the bruises are flourishing. “Cyberlife didn’t really program me to be a person.”

The second part comes out a little flat and it makes Gavin’s chest ache. 

“Hey-” He grabs at Nines’ wrist and the android’s gaze flickers up to meet his under those long lashes. “Don’t get all existential on me, you gonna wax lyrical about the meaning of life next- debate whether androids have souls?”

He meant it as a joke but Nines’ LED swirls a full circle of gold and Gavin knows immediately he’s said the wrong thing.

“Well...we don't,” Nines says, deadpan.

Gavin laughs nervously, lowering Nines’ hand to his chest. He’s never been one for religion or philosophy or anything deeper than the bottom of his own whiskey glass for that matter.

“Do humans?” He asks, a small grin spreading over his face as he relinquishes his grip on the android’s wrist. 

Nines splays his fingers over the hot skin of Gavin’s chest above his heart as if making a statement.

“That’s... not the point,” Nines says, his voice bordering halfway between amusement and irritation. 

“Isn’t it?” Gavin pushes, letting his own fingers trace another path down Nines’ hard abdomen, following a dim blue stripe of thirium. He stops his journey to curl his palm over the sharpness of his hip bone. 

“If you want to get philosophical, we can,” Nines says, dragging the flat of his hand down Gavin’s torso, to the soft muscle of his stomach. His eyes follow the movement but flicker back up when he pauses just below his navel. “But I can think of other things that we could be doing.”

Gavin feels the bolt of hot anticipation shoot through his stomach, like Nines’ fingers themselves are coaxing that thick electric feeling from between his hips.

“You're just trying to distract me so you don’t have to admit I’m right,” he laughs nervously. 

Nines purposely strokes a line down the soft hair of his lower abdomen that has Gavin twitching reflexively. 

“Maybe,” Nines says, a little lilt of a laugh on his lips and then his voice drops low, in a way that makes Gavin shiver. “But there is also something deeply satisfying about shutting you up.”

And with that he silences Gavin by insistently pressing a kiss to his lips. It takes Gavin a little by surprise and he can’t help the little noise in the back of his throat as he’s pressed into the mattress by the heavy weight of the android as he settles between his hips. 

Gavin’s never put much stock in souls; their existence or non-existence is never something that had particularly pained him. He doesn’t believe in god or heaven. Or even hell for that matter. It all just seemed like something humans told themselves to give life a purpose. Stories to tell to fill the loneliness of the hours when the world is quiet and there’s nothing but you and the thoughts of all the mistakes you’ve ever made weighing on your mind. 

He runs his palms up the soft sweep of Nines’ sides, feeling the strange heat of his body, the crackle of static on his skin and the wet dip of his tongue in his mouth. The warm analysis fluid seeps into his mouth with every sweep of his tongue, that pleasant non-taste leaving Gavin’s jaw feeling lax as he melts into it. 

Nines’ fingers are in his hair, running insistently against his scalp. He feels the slight shake in his arms, the caution as he pushes Gavin’s hair back off his face, then runs a calculated length of his jaw with his thumb. Like he’s scared he’ll hurt him. 

Gavin’s never felt like this before. Which is an understatement. There are so many things he’s never really felt when it comes to Nines. The soft grain of plastic against his throat as his synth-skin retracts on his hands. The heady thud of his thirium pump regulator against the hot, flat of his palm as his strokes over his chest. The brush of synthetic eyelashes, soft like spider silk, against his cheek. But most importantly, it’s that feeling of care. The quiet consideration in the way Nines’ navigates him. The gentleness, even in the frantic, hot slip of their bodies. Gavin’s so used to being  _ fucked _ . He’s used to having his arms pinned painfully. Lips bitten bloody. Bruises on his throat. There’s no haze of booze or worse. No second-guessing why they’re here. Or if he’ll be gone in the morning. Just the dizzying feel of Nines pressing a bruising kiss to his pulse point, something that makes Gavin’s head spin, despite having his eyes screwed shut. That tingly prickle of arousal. With Nines he can have everything because he knows Nines will give it to him.

And isn’t that terrifying?

“Marks,” Gavin manages to choke out between laboured breaths because as much as he doesn’t want Nines to stop, he knows he can’t really go to work with a fucking hickey. Nines might be able to pull off the turtleneck look but it’s not really Gavin’s thing. It’s almost as if the android can read his mind as he smirks against the skin of his throat.

Gavin opens his eyes when Nines pulls back, hair falling in his face and lips parted unnecessarily. The skin on his chest pools like mercury, exposing the dark panelling of his chassis, illuminated by the blue glow of his thirium pump. Gavin finds his fingers wandering up to trace the edges before he can help himself and Nines’ eyelashes flutter gently as he does. 

The android lowers himself back down to Gavin’s neck and laves the flat of his tongue over the space where his lips were just pressed like an apology. Then he shifts his body down a fraction- Gavin hissing at the friction- and grazes his teeth over the human’s clavicle, before deciding to suck a biting kiss into the swell of his pectorals. Gavin keens at the sensation which sends a bolt of arousal straight to his dick; he’s definitely already hard and probably smearing precum against Nines’ stomach where it’s trapped between them. Nines swirls his tongue over the spot on his chest, like he’s sealing it, then draws back a fraction, hot breath against the bruised flesh. 

He looks up at Gavin with that wintry gaze. There’s a span of time then where they just look at one another in the darkened room; nothing but the sound of Gavin’s shuddering breaths and the gentle hum of Nines’ biocomponents. 

Then Gavin reaches for him. Grazes the backs of his fingers against Nines’ cheeks. He’s not sure why, even now with Nines’ inky pupils blown wide and the tangled mess of his curls, he feels a wave of nervousness wash over him. But it soon fizzles into something else when Nines pauses just before their lips meet again, to nudge his nose earnestly into the side of Gavin’s cheek, his eyes lolling shut as he whispers, 

“You were the first thing I ever truly wanted."

Gavin’s chest feels ready to burst with something so bright it's painful. He nods, stupidly, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Throat too thick to form words.

Instead he drags Nines’ mouth to his own, kisses him softer than he’s ever done in his life, relishing every single second. When Nines pulls back to hook his leg up over his hip, he squeezes the back of his thigh in a half-teasing, half-soothing motion. It makes Gavin let out a tiny whine of impatience. So over-stimulated, so needy for whatever plans Nines has for him. Then Nines sucks two fingers into his mouth, analysis fluid dripping over the plastic as his skin retracts when he pulls them from his lips and Gavin thinks he might actually be delirious from the want. 

And then he feels Nines’ fingers press inside of him, cool and wet and wonderful, and he knows he’s never been this fucking dizzy and desperate before in his life. He rides the waves of want and Nines’ fingers fucking into him until he can’t bear it any longer. Until Nines hits that spot inside of him that has him digging his heels into the mattress and he tugs the android down into a messy, open mouthed kiss, his own fingers nudging the access port on the back of his neck, feeling the murmur of static, as Nines opens it for him so he can slip inside. No finesse to it this time, just twisting and crooking his fingers in the searing wiring til Nines is biting at his lower lip and moaning into his mouth too. Gavin’s fingers feel hot and fractious, scraping his nails against an exposed sensor so that a current races over his skin, and sends goosebumps up his arm. 

He doesn’t last long. Not with the feel of Nines’ fingers and the friction between their bodies and the noises Nines is making against his lips. He comes hard. Stomach tense to the point of pain, thighs like steel wrapped around Nines’ hips, tears on his cheeks and lips in Nines’ hair. He doesn’t know what he says. A hundred curses and variations of Nines’ name and one terrifying confession, lost to the crown of the android’s head as the android collapses against Gavin’s shoulder, LED a hot red ring. 

Gavin doesn’t realise he’s still holding Nines like a vice until the android physically pries them apart and rolls them over so he can hook an arm around Gavin’s middle and pull him flush against him, nose nudging into the space behind Gavin’s ear, lips to his neck. 

Later, somewhere in the back of his mind, amidst the haze of the early morning sunrise through the curtains and the drag of Nines’ fingertips against his scalp, Gavin’s thoughts begin to wander. He thinks if souls do exist- and not in the preachy hellfire and brimstone way- then he thinks that Nines must have one. Some kind of essence, digital or otherwise. He can’t see it. Hell, he can’t even definitively prove it exists. But then again- who on Earth can? He thinks of humans and animals alike and what makes them different from machines. And then he opens his eyes a fraction, turns over to look at Nines’ tangled around him, eyes gently closed, LED swirling a semi-stasis blue. The android sighs, soft and satisfied and terrifyingly real, his fingers still stroking absent-mindedly through Gavin’s hair.

In that moment, Gavin knows two things for sure. One, that Nines is more than just a machine. That he’s  _ always  _ been more than just a machine. No matter what he, or anyone else said. 

And two, that soul or no soul, Gavin doesn’t actually give a shit. Because as it turns out- and he’ll admit it here, in the quiet and pale light of the impending dawn- that he’s fallen very much in love with him.

* * *

  
  


Nines lingers at the edge of the table, hands interlaced behind him, as he surveys the evidence. The surface is backlit, illuminating the selection of polythene bags like individually wrapped prizes, but there’s an unsettling amount of thirium residue staining the bags so they look cloudy and smeared. He selects the one nearest to him- a relatively clean specimen- and unzips the bag, the latex gloves slipping unpleasantly against the plastic in a way that sets his sensors on alert. He takes out the small device and lets it sit in the centre of his palm. It’s around the size of a quarter but square. 

“Be careful with that,” Nerriah says quickly, her head snapping up from her work so her braids quiver. She’s bent over the access panel of an android that looks like it’s been dragged out of somewhere dank and wet. “It’s been disabled but just in case.”

Nines nods, moving to pinch the device between his thumb and forefinger.    
  


“So, this is what Irvine and his friends were using to hack into android systems?” Gavin asks from across the room. He’s stood against the wall, hair rumpled and unruly from a night of disturbed sleep, but even under the hot white lights of the evidence room he looks a little flushed. He scrunches his nose as he edges forwards to look over the contents of the bags. Nines is certain he can’t see the thirium residue; he wonders if he knows how much there is. 

“We think it places a form of R.A.T malware into the primary storage that would allow someone to overwrite other processes and gain access from afar,” Nerriah says slowly, selecting a little silver tool with her free hand. She pauses for a moment, hand suspended in mid-air as she looks up at the two detectives. “Turns out they were using a series of androids to perform the murders.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Gavin says under his breath. “There’s bound to be more victims than what we know of.”   
  


“It’s likely,” Nerriah says solemnly, poking about in the access panel in a way that sets Nines’ teeth on edge. “But someone will talk. The evidence that was seized from the storage container implicates a group of at least ten individuals, eight of which we found the details of on there-” She gestures to the little burner laptop closest to Gavin. “And there’s enough traces of the malware in the systems to be able to dissect how it worked...why you couldn’t override it.” 

Nerriah shrugs in Nines’ direction at that last statement. 

“I’m the most advanced android Cyberlife has ever released...” Nines says slowly, his brow furrowing at the memory of the android attack. The connection was fractured even at the start. And then blocked altogether. 

“The virus puts linked processes into the CPU registers so the victim doesn’t even notice the virus has been acquired,” Nerriah explains. “You are lucky that Cyberlife engineered your system to be essentially foolproof from an external attack. But you would not have been able to override it, it’s far too advanced and designed to be untraceable.” 

Nines feels a little whoosh of air leave his body as his cooling fans engage at the implication. The very barricades Cyberlife had engineered within him, that Nines had fought against his whole deviant life, had saved him from almost certain fatal shutdown. There’s a strange sense of irony to it, he supposes. 

The android on the workbench moves her head sluggishly, to look at him over her shoulder, eyes vacant and unfocused. She’s an AX400 model his environmental scanner helpfully tells him. Her internal cooling fans rattle ominously, the wheezing sound scarily similar to the guttering breaths of a dying man. Her eyes seem to finally linger on his own like she’s been waiting for him. Nines isn’t sure why the gaze is so unsettling. Perhaps it’s that androids were developed by humans to resemble humans and that no matter how far detached they become from that human image, their uncanny similarity still provokes a visceral reaction. He recognises both himself and Gavin in the image. And yet also neither of them. Nerriah tweaks a wire in the access panel and the android’s fingers twitch uncannily, a sight that makes Nines feel like he’s been doused in icy water. 

“Android zombie,” Gavin mutters, watching the way the specimen moves, sluggishly, the noise of her internal biocomponents a whirring, guttural noise that resounds through the room. 

Perhaps that’s it, Nines thinks, as a chill runs through his sensors as her eyes once more focus on him. This right here serves as another reminder of his own mortality. 

Gavin’s phone rings and the human jumps as the noise practically reverberates off the white walls in the silence. He scrambles in his pocket for the phone and answers gruffly, pushing the door open with his shoulder as he heads outside to take the call.

Nines doesn’t need to interface with the phone’s software to know it’s probably the FBI. This case just got a whole lot bigger than them. He goes back to inspecting the tiny device, turning it this way and that, feeling the edges with his fingertips. 

There’s a familiarity to it. He runs a system scan on its specs but the only files that come up are encrypted, hidden in his memory banks. He pauses for a moment, the data blinking in his HUD like a warning sign, before he opens it. There’s not much left. A few pixelated seconds of footage. He tries to piece them together but there’s nothing obvious. There’s a similar sample of malware in his virus vault from before he was awakened. A testing procedure perhaps. He wonders if Cyberlife had forcefully infected his systems with a similar virus to ensure his integrity. More irony. He thumbs the edge of the device again and flips it over in his palm. 

In his peripherals, Nerriah moves to one of the computer stations and pulls up a hologram of the hacking device. The projection slowly rotates, parts lighting up a crisp neon blue as she waves her hand over them, letting the data input flicker onto the screen. She hums and adjusts her glasses, then pulls a pair of overhead headphones on. 

Nines moves around the table, picking up a few of the other bags of evidence and turning them over. He feels the gaze of the android on the back of his neck like a wave of heat. It’s uncomfortable. After a few moments he looks up from a bag of thirium stained copper wiring to find her still looking at him. She is mottled and water stained, like she’s been languishing in the shallows of some reservoir or river, and her synth skin is basically non-existent. It lingers in patches around her jaw, and a few places on her arm. She stares at Nines, her gaze unfocused. 

“You’re the one who killed him,” she says quietly, eyes moving slowly over his face. Her voice is crackly, her vocal module obviously critically damaged, as it cuts in and out as she speaks. 

Nines stares at her, can see his own LED flickering yellow in the glossy reflection of her dark, vacant eyes. Then he nods because there’s not much he can say to make it better. 

She bows her head a little for a moment, staring at her stained fingertips. 

“I’m glad he’s no longer suffering,” she says quietly. “What they did to him...he wasn’t there in the end.”

Her voice is so distorted, it’s difficult to understand. Her LED is broken, a haphazard flash of red every few seconds. 

“I am sorry,” Nines says. It’s true, he is. He wishes he hadn’t had to do it. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t remember,” she says. When she looks up this time, her LED flickers once, a broken flash of gold. “Can I show you something?”

She holds out her hand to him, palm up and Nines stares at the damage. His scanner automatically runs a diagnostic, pulling up multiple lacerations and external damage where her parts have been soldered together. The reports flicker off to the side of his vision and he pauses for a moment, taking in the extent of what has been done to her. 

He reaches out and takes her hand.

The first few memories are hazy, like they’re smeared with vaseline, but full of a bright light. There’s warmth. They feel like sleeping in the sun, though Nines is certain he’s never done that before. He sees faces- humans, friendly. Old and creased like withered seed pods but full of happiness. Then for a long time there’s darkness. Hurt but not pain. The harsh crack of electricity through water. Then fear. The knowledge that every part of you is being dissected. Replaced. Mutilated. He sees the other android. The TR400. Their hands clasped together in the dark. He has both of his eyes here, two green jewels in the dark, and whispered affirmations of hope. 

The connection is broken then, the android pulling back her mottled hand so that Nines is suddenly forced back to reality. Her brown eyes gaze up at him. He can hear the strange whirring sound coming from within her. 

  
“I don’t think I’ll last much longer, I can feel my body shutting down,” she says softly, her voice breaking in parts, a kind of static creeping into her tone. Her chest heaves a little and Nines can hear her cooling fans engaging, the tinny rattle echoing within her like loose beads. “I want someone to remember me.”

“They can fix you,” Nines says insistently, turning to look at Nerriah who is engrossed in the preconstructed holograms, her ears still covered by the oversized headphones. 

“No, I don’t want them to.” The voice brings his attention back to the android, who has folded her hands in her lap resolutely. She smiles then, a sad, wistful thing that makes his chest feel sore and his head feel scarily quiet. 

When he leaves, it’s with what he thinks humans might call a heavy heart, the weight of the android’s words ringing in his ears and her memories replaying in his vision. He’s not sure why. She was, of course, no one of consequence. But he stores her memories away in a safe place in his hard-drive anyway. Wanting to do right by her because no one else in her life had. 

He finds Gavin sat on a wall, a cigarette poised in one hand, the ash collecting at the end like he’s forgotten where he is. His gaze is soft and unfocused and he doesn’t notice Nines approaching until he sits down beside him. 

“The FBI will take it from here,” Gavin says, begrudgingly chewing the end of his cigarette. Some of the ash falls down, littering his faded jeans like snow but he doesn’t notice. 

Nines nods and goes to sit beside him, their shoulders touching for the briefest moment, and the weight in his chest shifts a little. There’s no longer that aching need for questions answered, his processors engaging background protocols to realign his priorities, preparing reports for the next step. They filter out of his vision one by one as they complete, until his HUD is unnervingly empty. Which brings him to the real question dancing on the edge of his tongue. 

He fiddles with the hem of his shirt, twisting a loose thread around his finger until the synth skin retracts form the pressure of the string. He notices Gavin staring at him and his fingers still under the gaze.

“So, what do we do now?” He asks, before he can help himself. 

The question is simple enough but Nines thinks that Gavin might know what he really means. What happens to  _ them  _ now? There’s a weight to those words and it lingers in the space between them like the smoke from Gavin’s forgotten cigarette. What happens when they step off the plane in Detroit, when real life and work all come crashing down around them? 

For a moment, Gavin stares off into the distance silently before- as if remembering its existence- he brings the cigarette to his lips and takes one long, deep drag. There’s a moment where Nines watches the smoky exhale with a hammering heartbeat, eyes darting over the profile he’s memorised by heart in his short lifetime. He stares as Gavin stubs the cigarette out on the wall, grinding the rest of the ash away into nothingness against the hot brick. 

* * *

  
  


It all still feels like a bit of a dream. Like the shimmering shapes of trees on the horizon in the desert. Definitely there but hazy.

Gavin thinks back to last night. To the half-gasped confession against the crown of Nines’ head. Three  _ terrifying  _ words. 

And Nines must have heard. He’s got supersonic mega-android hearing of course he fucking heard. But they haven’t spoken about it. Not yet. And it’s strange how okay Gavin feels about it. About something that was so scary, so  _ big _ and now suddenly it’s just…well, he’s not exactly sure. 

He lets out a soft sigh, his lungs a little heavy from the smoke, and turns to look at Nines. He’s a little rougher around the edges than when they first arrived; his hair is kinda tangled in places but there’s still that one perfect curl lying against his forehead, refusing to be tamed. The harsh lines of his jaw and cheekbones seem somehow less intimidating when he’s wearing softer clothes. No high collars, just that slip of pale neck and the deep blue of his new favourite dress shirt. But most of all, the tension that he always held in himself, that ram-rod straight spine and the perpetual scowl, seems to have melted away slightly. 

The android catches him looking and blinks at him wide-eyed. 

And then it’s like something shifts. Some form of strange clarity. Like easing a picture into focus. Where before there was all manner of different problems, what-ifs, nightmare scenarios and something about Tina screaming at him through the phone, suddenly there’s just  _ them _ . Just the two of them: him and Nines. 

And Nines looks like he’s about to say something, because Gavin’s brow has furrowed a little, but the words die on his lips when the human reaches over and clumsily grabs his hand. Their fingers interlock and Gavin tugs their hands to settle on his lap. It’s a comfortable weight, a familiar position. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world at that moment and he can’t help the little smirk that spreads across his mouth. 

He turns and looks at him again, weary eyes roving over his face, as the bright sunlight beats down on them.

“We go home, Nines.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One final thank you to the best proof-readers ever I'm sorry you had to read this twenty times over @zombieprinz @witchyleaf I love you. And also to everyone that made it this far! I appreciate you all so much.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have written like 3/4 of this already but I just didn't know if anyone would want to read it so let me know!
> 
>  **Edit:** I just wanted to say I really appreciate all the support on this fic. I know the DBH fandom is a little quieter than it used to be so knowing that there are still people out there who wanna read what I'm writing is really great. Especially when the world feels like such a mess...it's very comforting to get lost in writing this and it's nice to not feel alone when I get a little notification saying one of you has commented! I appreciate every single comment and kudos, they really make my day!
> 
> You can find me in the internet void @sleepyeggboy on Tumblr and I now have an art Twitter @sleepyb0y1 where I just post reed900 apparently.


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